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The Rietveldsche Toren, Delft 

From a painting by Frans Walden, owned by the author 







THE SPELL 
OF HOLLAND 

The Story of a Pilgrimage to the Land 
of Dykes and Windmills 



3 Y > 

Burton E. Stevenson 



With Illustrations from Photographs 
BY THE AUTHOR 




^^^ 



\A 



Publishers 

L.C.PAGE& COMPANY 

BOSTON-MDCCCCXI 



T 






Copyright^ iqii 
By L. C. Page & Company 

(INCORPOR A TED) 



All rights reserved 



First Impression, August, 1911 



\ 



%> 



*t 



Electrotyfied and Printed by 
THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C, H. Simonds &> Co., Boston, U. S,A . 



CU295484 



TO 

ttt|[ 
BEST OF COMRADES 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 


w 


PAGE 


I. 


Into " Hollow + Land " 


I 


II. 


The City on the Rotte 


' *3 


III. 


Along the Merwede .... 


. 26 


IV. 


First Lessons in Dutcho/ . 


. 44 


V. 


Trams and Trekschtjits 


• 57 


VI. 


Oude Delft 


73 


VII. 


The " Blyde Incomste " at Leiden . 


, 86 


VIII. 


In " The Count's Enclosure " . 


102 


IX. 


On the Road to Sloterdijk 


119 


X. 


Haarlem 


131 


XI. 


Round About Haarlem . 


143 


XII. 


A Stroll on the Beach . 


154 


XIII. 


The Town on the Amstel 


164 


XIV. 


A Glance at Dutch Art . 


181 


XV. 


The Hut op Peter the Great . 


190 


XVI. 


The City of Ripened Curds 


. 208 


XVII. 


The Island of Marken, Limited 


227 


XVIII. 


The Annexation of the " Chocolate 






Drop" 


246 


XIX. 


Free Frisia . 


265 


XX. 


Zwolle 


282 


XXI. 


The City Fathers of Kampen . 


292 


XXII. 


More About Kampen 


304 


XXIII. 


The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee . 


3i4 


XXIV. 


Among Dutch Inns . 


338 


XXV. 


The Hills of Holland . 


35o 


XXVI. 


Into Zeeland 


361 


XXVII. 


Last Days 


375 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

♦ 

PAGE 

The Rietveldsche Toren, Delft. From a painting by Frans 

W olden Frontispiece 

Map of Holland . . . . cv . . . facing vi 

A Dordrecht Vista ■ . .30 

In the Church at Dort . . „ . . . . . . 36 

The Harbour at Gorinchem 40 

The Stadhuis, Gouda. — The Groote Kerk, Gouda . . 52 

A Windmill near Delft . 60 

On the " Oude Weg " to Scheveningen 64 

A Street in old Scheveningen 68 

A Canal at Delft 74 

The East Gate at Delft, New Church in Distance . . 82 

The " Blyde Incomste " at Leiden 92 

Cutting Peat on the Haarlemmer Polder. — Peat Dry- 
ing for Market 126 

A Zwolle Gaper. — A Haarlem Gaper 132 

Interior of Groote Kerk, Haarlem. — Choir - stalls, 

Groote Kerk, Haarlem 134 

Ruins of the Castle of Brederode 146 

A Windmill at Lehden 154 

The Mouth of the Rhine, Katwijk. — Shell - gatherer on 

the Beach, Katwijk . . .158 

An Amsterdam Canal . . .164 

The Queen, the Prince Consort and Juliana . . .170 

A Vista in Amsterdam 174 

The Weigh - house, Alkmaar 214 

vii 



viii List of Illustrations 

PAGE 

The Alkmaar Cheese - market opens. — Testing the Cheese 216 
Children at Marken, front view. — Children at Marken, 

rear view 234.' 

A Marken Street. — A Marken Madonna .... 236^ 

The Harbour at Volendam on Sunday 238 

Two Maidens of Volendam. — An old Couple of Volendam 240 

A Vista at Edam 244 

Harbour - tower, Hoorn. — The Harbour, Hoorn . . .252^ 

The Aanspreckers at Enkhuisen 258 1 "' 

The Drommedaris Tower, Enkhuisen . . . . . 264. 

Scrubbing the Street at Zwolle 282 

The Pulpit, Groote Kerk, Zwolle . . . . . . 286 ! 

The Sassenpoort, Zwolle 290 

City -Gate, Kampen 300^ 

Street Scene, Kampen, — Market - women at Kampen . . 302 

Loading the Hay, — Haymakers near Kampen . . . 308 
Bringing in the Hay near Kampen. — "A single slender 

tree . . . worthy of hobbema " 31o 

Going Milking, near Kampen .312 

The Costume of Urk 318 

Jan Loosman, Lichtwachter, and his family, Urk . . . 322* 

The Aanroeper at Urk 326 

The Back Street at Urk 328 ! 

On the Wharf at Urk. — The Old Fisherman . . . 334 

The Cathedral of St. John's Hertogenbosch .... 362 < 

Coming Home from Church, Walcheren 368 

A Zeeland Courtship 370 

The Town Hall, Middleburg 380 ' 

A Zeeland Milkmaid 384 v 

The Breskens Costume 386 



.- 



r 



THE 

SPELL OF HOLLAND 



/ 

CHAPTER I 



INTO " HOLLOW-LAND " 



" Haf you any sveets? " 

It was the Dutch customs-officer at Flushing who 
asked the question, and, as he did so, he tapped our 
luggage with an inquiring finger. 

"Sweets?" I repeated, doubting if I had heard 
aright. 

" Sveets — yess ; candy, cakes ? " 

Tobacco and spirit we were accustomed to deny. 
But candy, cakes! 

"How absurd!" said Betty. 

The inspector, however, evidently saw nothing of 
absurdity in it; so I gravely assured him that we 
had with us neither candy nor cakes, and started to 
unstrap the luggage to prove it. 

He stopped me with a gesture, made a few cabal- 
istic chalk-marks, and waved us on. 

We passed through an open door and emerged upon 

1 



The Spell of Holland 



the platform beyond with a certain sense of exaltation 
and excitement. We were in Holland — a country of 
whose language we knew not a word. And we had 
decided that, on this pilgrimage, we would depend 
upon our own resources. Never, never would we 
employ a guide or interpreter; never would we fre- 
quent places " patronized by English and Americans." 
We would see the Dutch at home; we would find our 
own way about — that would be half the fun of the 
trip! You will see, if you follow this veracious nar- 
rative, how well we kept that resolution ! 

By the side of the platform a long train was drawn 
up, each carriage labelled with its destination — 
" Amsterdam," "Den Haag," " Dort," "Antwerp." 
We were going to Rotterdam, but we saw no Rot- 
terdam label. So I approached a tall, bearded man 
in resplendent uniform and inquired if this was the 
train to Rotterdam. 

" Wat ist ? " he demanded, glaring at me sternly. 

" Rotterdam? " I repeated, uncertain as to the lan- 
guage he had spoken. It sounded like English, and 
yet it didn't. "Rotterdam?" I said again, and 
pointed to the train. 

He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head to 
intimate that this strange word was unknown to 
him. 

"Is this Holland, or what is it?" I inquired o^ 
Betty. " Surely he ought to know Rotterdam ! " 

"Let me try," said Betty, and she also said "Rot- 
terdam? " and pointed to the train. 



Into " Hollow-land " 



The big man cogitated deeply for a moment; then 
a light broke over his face. 

" Oh ! " said he. " R-r-rotterDAM ! Ja, ja ! " 
and he led us to the nearest carriage. 

Mere type cannot express the way in which he 
pronounced that word. It was not a word, it was 
an explosion which almost swept us off the platform. 
I saved my cap by grabbing at it, and we clambered 
into our places. 

" Just the same," continued Betty, when we were 
settled, " it was absurd." 

" Yes," I agreed; "he ought to understand his 
own language. I wonder if they always use so much 
wind when they talk? I'll have to get a string for 
my cap." 

" I didn't mean that," said Betty. " I meant about 
the sweets. Why should they look for sweets ? " 

" Because the government taxes them, I suppose. 
That's the usual explanation. In England it was 
whiskey; in France it was matches and tobacco; here 
it's cakes and candy. I'm glad you finished that last 
box before we arrived." 

There was a sudden excitement on the platform; 
a man appeared and looked at our tickets and handed 
them back to us with a polite smile, and shut the door 
with a bang and threw the catch. 

We looked at each other with beaming faces. We 
were to have the compartment to ourselves. 

And then the train rumbled out of the station, and 
started leisurely away toward Rotterdam, and Hoi- 



The SpeU of Holland 



land — the Holland of our dreams — began to unroll 
before us. Let me add here that I am perfectly aware 
that, strictly speaking, Holland is but a single prov- 
ince of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands; but 
to English-speaking people it has come to stand for 
the whole kingdom, and with this meaning it will be 
used in this book. 

Here we were, then, with Holland unfolding 
before our eyes. The first thing to be done, of course, 
was to get the windows down. Then we gazed out 
through the gathering dusk at the strange landscape. 
And yet not strange, for we had seen it a score of 
times in Dutch pictures. 

That landscape is always the same — low and level 
fields, regularly laid out and divided by narrow bands 
of gleaming water; gayly-painted, high-roofed houses 
here and there, each with a few trees about it; an 
occasional windmill, with its great arms going round 
and round; and in the foreground and middle dis- 
tance and extreme distance, long avenues of limes and 
elms and willows, marching in stately procession as 
far as the eye can reach, all of a size, all trimmed 
on exactly the same pattern, all planted at exactly the 
same distance apart. These trees are, to the stranger, 
the first tangible evidence of the Dutchman's love of 
order — that habit of precision which is bred in the 
bone. But, as we go on, we find that the whole coun- 
try is trained and pruned. The fields are all parallelo- 
grams; the angles ar.e all right angles; the lines are 
all straight lines. Trees grow just where they should, 



Into " Hollow-land " 



trained to strange shapes ; streams flow at a calculated 
speed, between rigid banks; not a weed dares show 
its head where it is not wanted. 

All of which, I take it, is because the Dutch 
have made the land they live on, and so could 
shape it to suit themselves. Here is none of the 
carelessness of nature, but the ordered reign of 
science ! 

Every road and every canat^as I have said, is bor- 
dered by an avenue of trees. If the trees are along 
a canal, their roots serve to strengthen the banks. If 
they are along a road, they offer a most grateful shade 
during the heat of summer. Whether along road or 
canal, they add not a little to the picturesqueness of 
the country. 

One would think that service enough to exact of 
any tree; but the Dutch are, before everything, utili- 
tarian. They harness the winds of heaven; they use 
the dredgings from their streams as fuel; and they 
use the branches of their willows to strengthen the 
dykes. Hence most of the willows are pollarded, so 
that their roots strike deeper into the soil to hold 
the canal-banks in place, while their branches are sold 
to the government to be woven into mats to hold 
back the sea. Somebody has remarked that the 
Dutchman has three enemies — his lakes, his rivers, 
and the ocean. The lakes have been drained, the 
rivers imprisoned, and the ocean driven back. The 
whole country is a fortress surrounded by fortifica- 
tions \r\ the shape of dykes, manned by an army of 



The Spell of Holland 



engineers waging a ceaseless war against an enemy 
that never sleeps. 

After an hour's ride through Holland, no Dutch 
landscape has any surprises for you. And yet to say 
that it is always the same is not to say that it becomes 
monotonous. It never does. One grows to love it 
and to understand it, to look for well-known features 
and to mark with delight trivial variations. One 
studies it, and finds its heart always open. It is com- 
panionable; it is a landscape to live with, restful 
beyond compare. It furnishes the key to Dutch char- 
acter. 

And then, of course, there is always the variation 
of light and shade. The sky changes from grave to 
gay and back again in the most surprising way. The 
red sails of the boats gliding along between the fields; 
the high-lights from the glazed tiles of the houses; 
the varied tints of wheat and flax and colza; the in- 
comparable green of the lush meadows, diversified by 
white daisies and scarlet poppies; the streams gay 
with water-lilies and bright with ever-changing re- 
flections — all these give to the Dutch landscape a 
charm and variety always fresh and delightful. 

This landscape, so placid and so gentle, teems with 
life. The pastures are dotted with black-and-white 
cows and snowy sheep; the ditches are alive with 
ducks and swans; along the roads the queer little 
carts of the peddlers are always passing, drawn by 
dogs; or, perhaps, it is a milk-cart, its cans gleaming 
like burnished gold, and pushed by a white-capped 



Into " Hollow-land M 



girl; the rivers and larger canals are full of boats — 
boats of every kind and size and shape; boats with 
red sails or propelled by steam, or drawn by a man 
and a dog. I do not know any country which, in 
the life of its fields and roads and rivers, offers so 
much of interest. 

The black-and-white cows are everywhere, from 
Zeeland to Friesland — from south to north. Great, 
placid creatures they are, quietly grazing in little 
herds, and, I have fancied, more phlegmatic and self- 
satisfied than the cows of other lands. Always black- 
and-white, for the Dutchman will have no other kind, 
they produce those millions of gallons of milk from 
which are made those millions of pounds of cheese 
and butter by which the Dutch farmer grows wealthy. 

And also everywhere at this season — mid- June — 
are the haymakers, men, women and children, labour- 
ing, while the sun shines, to gather and house the 
food to maintain all these cows through the winter. 
You may well believe that it takes a lot of it! Such 
ricks of hay are to be seen nowhere else; mountains 
of hay, overtopping the trees and the houses. Those 
big cows also have big appetites! All this is done 
by hand; the hay is mowed with the scythe, is turned 
with rakes, is loaded and stacked with pitchforks. 
That is the way it has always been done, and, I sup- 
pose, always will be. The women are white-capped 
and many-skirted; the men are blue-trousered and 
gray-shirted ; and all are wooden-shoed. 

So much for the Dutch landscape. 



8 The Spell of Holland 

Our train ambled along at a moderate pace, pausing, 
from time to time, at little stations, and we, who had 
come from England, were impressed by the care every 
one took to make sure we were going the right way. 
On English railways, the traveller is left to look after 
himself to a surprising extent; no one approaches 
him, no one examines his ticket, no one makes sure 
that he is on the right train, he must find out for 
himself when he has reached his destination, and 
sometimes he must hunt up a man to give his ticket 
to. Once we could find no one, and we have those 
tickets yet! Here all that is changed. At every 
step, a guard appears and looks at your ticket, and 
punches it; as soon as he finds you are a stranger in 
the country — which is usually in about a second — 
he takes care to inform you that this is not your sta- 
tion and that you are to keep your seat. If you 
attempt to alight, you are pushed back into the car- 
riage, gently but firmly. Every attache of the com- 
pany seems to know your destination, and to be deter- 
mined to see that you reach it safely. 

And here let me pay a tribute to Dutch railways. 
They never seem in a hurry, they stop amply long 
at stations, and yet they are always on time. The 
carriages are clean and comfortable; the second-class 
compartments are even luxurious; the third-class not 
at all bad, but apt to be crowded. Before the train 
starts, an official assures himself that it is the one you 
wish to take; if you do not get out at your station, 
a guard comes to tell you that you have arrived. 



Into " Hollow-land ' 



This is true not only of the trains but of the light 
steam-trams, which cross the country in every direc- 
tion. Add to all this that the trains run at frequent 
intervals and at hours nicely calculated to suit the 
convenience of the people along the route and that 
the fares are very low, and perhaps you will under- 
stand why I think Dutch railways the best managed 
in the world. They are, for the most part, owned 
and operated by the state. I doubt very much if we 
could do so well. 

Darkness, long delayed, came at last, and still we 
rumbled on, over a great bridge, pausing at Dort, 
where refreshments were offered: — sandwiches of 
veal and salad, most tempting in appearance and folded 
in a snowy napkin; fruit, wine, beer, mineral waters, 
hot coffee — 

The price of a sandwich? 

" Forty cents, sir," says the attendant, in careful 
English. 

The price seems rather high till one reflects that 
a Dutch cent is not a coin of large value. For there 
are a hundred of them to the florin, and a florin is 
worth about forty cents American; so that forty 
cents Dutch is about fifteen cents American — the 
usual price! 

The attendant has cigars, also; very nice-looking 
cigars. I picked up one and asked the price. 

" Six cents," said the attendant. 

I gasped. 

" Six cents ? Do you mean six cents Dutch ? " 



10 The Spell of Holland 

., —fc— — II Ml.ll. ■■ li I 

He nodded, and I bought two. 

Very gingerly, I started to smoke one of them; 
but doubt soon vanished. It was really a good cigar 
— and it had cost less than three cents American ! I 
had a haunting fear that the man had cheated him- 
self; but I found out afterwards that it was rather 
an expensive cigar — for Holland ! 

" I wonder/' said Betty, " if smoking is allowed? ,: 

" Oh, yes," I said, and called her attention to a sign 
in Dutch, French and English on the partition above 
her head. The English part of it read: 



Smoking allowed here unless objected to by 
any passenger who has not been able to find a 
seat in any of the compartments in which smok- 
ing is prohibited. 



" If you object," I said, " we'll stop the train and 
call the guard and see what can be done." 

" I don't object as long as you smoke a cigar as 
good as that one. But it sounds rather complicated. 
What do you suppose happens when one does object? ' 

" I don't know," I said. " Maybe we'll see, some 
day." 

But we never did. No one ever objects. There is 
no one left to object in a country where even the 
babies smoke. 

Indeed, great attention is paid to the convenience 
of smokers, and only a few compartments bear the 
prohibition, " Neit Rooken," which means " No Smok- 
ing." Even in those, one may smoke if there are 



Into " Hollow-land " 11 

no ladies present, only you must knock your ashes 
out the window, since no trays are provided for them. 
But at last we were entering Rotterdam, on a 
viaduct high above the streets, which enables the 
patrons of the railroad to get disconcerting glimpses 
into the second-story windows of the houses on either 
side. I suppose the people living there cease to notice, 
after awhile, the passage of a train. Then we rum- 
bled to a stop in a shed; the couj-ier from the Hotel 
Weimar was in waiting and handed us over to the 
bus-driver, and we rattled away over the cobbles, 
mounting a steep bridge, now and then, and coasting 
down on the other side; catching glimpses of the 
lights reflected in dark canals, crowded with strange- 
looking, shadowy craft — just such a scene as Tom 
Hood saw, nearly a century ago — 

Before me lie dark waters 

In broad canals and deep, 
Whereon the silver moonbeams 

Sleep, restless in their sleep; 
A sort of vulgar Venice 

Reminds me where I am; 
Yes, yes; you are in England, 

And Fm in Rotterdam. 

The bus stopped, a porter opened the door and 
seized our luggage ; a boy held open the hotel door for 
us. M. le Proprietaire met us on the threshold and 
after a solemn greeting, commended us to the portier; 
the portier assigned us a room and summoned the 
elevator-boy, who took us upstairs and summoned the 
chambermaid; who brought some hot water and took 



12 The Spell of Holland 

our order for dinner down to the head-waiter; who 
assigned another waiter to attend us. So it required 
the combined efforts of ten people to get us settled 
for the night. I had a vision of those ten people 
standing in line with hands outstretched as we left 
the hotel. But that vision was not prophetic, for 
Dutch servants are made of flesh-and-blood, not of 
brass. 



CHAPTER II 



THE CITY ON THE ROTTE 



The River Rotte, transformed into the most 
placid of canals, still flows through Rotterdam. In 
the dam across this river the city had its origin, and 
from it took its name; but only in the last half- 
century has it been of any great importance. Now, 
coupled to the North Sea by a wide ship-canal, it is 
the first commercial city in the kingdom. Even 
Amsterdam, hoary with age, yields precedence to this 
vigorous stripling. But its very newness detracts from 
its interest to the stranger. The dog-carts, and high- 
hipped market-women, and gleaming milk-cans add 
an unaccustomed note to the streets, but they are, 
for the most part, given over to quite ordinary traffic. 
There are some old, high-gabled houses, and a few 
streets with an unquestioned air of antiquity about 
them; but there are so many other places in Holland 
where these things may be seen to so much greater 
advantage that Rotterdam would scarcely be worth 
a visit but for a single attraction. 

That attraction is the shipping. Nowhere else is 
there such a tangle of shipping as at Rotterdam. It 
crowds the canals and eddies along the quays; the 
high-backed bridges are constantly opening to let it 

13 



14 The SpeU of Holland 

through; locks are forever filling and emptying — 
shipping of all kinds, from the great liner just in from 
New York, to the flat-bottomed little trekschuit which 
a boy and a dog have towed in from Oudewater with 
a few pounds of butter for a cargo. 

Towing is an art in Holland, and horses are so 
few there that most of it is done by men and women 
and dogs. Now it is easy enough to tow a boat along 
a canal when there is a steersman at the stern to keep 
her nose away from the bank; but when it comes 
to towing a boat with no steersman, — and there very 
seldom is one except upon the large barges, — it re- 
quires some ingenuity. The steersman is, of course, 
dispensed with in order to cut down the cost of opera- 
tion, but it must have taken some thought on some- 
body's part to devise a towing method which would 
allow the towman to proceed straight ahead without 
stopping every minute to get the boat's nose out of 
the mud. It is accomplished by fastening the tow- 
line amidships, and then to a spar fastened sideways 
in the bow, thus forming a span which, when prop- 
erly adjusted, carries the boat on an even course 
without the need of a rudder. All over Holland you 
will see this process in operation. Sometimes a dog 
trotting in front of the man helps to pull; sometimes 
he uses his wife as auxiliary power, sometimes his 
children. Sometimes he merely pushes against the 
pole, dispensing with the towline, and sending the 
boat forward as fast as he can walk. It is probably 
not nearly so easy as it looks. 



The City on the Rotte 15 

Here at Rotterdam, you will see every size and 
variety of these trekschuits, as they are called. The 
smaller canals are crowded with them. Yonder is 
one which has brought a calf in to market; there is 
another serving as a moving-van and piled high with 
furniture; and here is a sail-boat just in from the 
river with a load of fish. 

A board with the legend " Vish te Koop " — " Fish 
to Sell " — is hung to the mast, and buxom huis- 
vrouws in white caps and wooden shoes, basket on 
arm, step aboard to select their purchase. The fish 
are swimming about in a tank in the centre of the 
boat, all sizes and all kinds, including eels. The 
housewife looks them over, decides on the kind she 
prefers, considers the size and appetite of her family, 
and points out to the boatman the fish she wants. 
The boatman slips a little hand-net over the fish, lifts 
it out gasping, places it on a beam-scale, weighs it, 
names the price, receives the money, and then pops 
the fish into the huisvrouw's basket. If she is par- 
ticular, she hurries home with the fish and keeps it 
alive for a day or two in a tub of clear water to 
improve its flavour. 

But the characteristic boat of Holland is the freight- 
barge, at once the home and livelihood of its owner. 
Built broad and blunt of bow to secure the maximum 
of loading space, flat-bottomed, so as to draw as 
little water as may be, they are, first of all, utilitarian. 
But they are more than that. For a Dutch bargee 
would be ashamed to be seen on the dirty, unsightly 



16 The Spell of Holland 

vessels so common on the rivers of other countries. 
His boat is varnished and oiled till it shines ; its upper 
works are gayly-painted ; its deck is scrubbed as white 
as any liner's; its brass-work (and there is always 
a lot of it) shines like burnished gold; its iron-work 
is not painted or lacquered, but polished till it looks 
like silver; immaculate white curtains, looped up with 
bright ribbons, hang at the cabin-windows; nowhere 
but in Holland will you see such a boat. 

And they are all like that. Their buckets and 
water-barrels are painted green and have hoops of 
polished brass; their long curving tillers are marvels 
of ornamental brass- work. Before the windows are 
little carved railings supporting pots of gaudy gera- 
niums. The dog-house is painted in blue and pink. 
And always you will see the dog trotting nervously 
up and down on guard, while his mistress, a vrouw 
of comfortable proportions, sits placidly knitting in 
the stern, awaiting the return of her lord and master 
from his affairs of business. Every barge has its 
name, but here there seems to be a lack of originality. 
I should hate to have to compute how many " Wilhel- 
minas ,3 there are in Holland, though " Juliana " is 
now coming to the fore. Also there is the " Gouden 
Tulp " or " Golden Tulip," the " Gouden Leeuw " or 
" Golden Lion," the " Gouden Zon " or " Golden Sun." 
From which it will be seen that gold is popular here, 
as everywhere. 

Here at Rotterdam, too, one is at the birthplace of 
that Fabian reformer, Gherardt Gherardts, or Eras- 



The City on the Rotte 17 

mus Desiderius, as he afterwards called himself — 
not too modestly, for the words mean " Beloved and 
Long-desired." He stands in bronze in the market- 
place, and his birthplace is shown in the Wyde Kerk- 
straat — " in this small house was born the great 
Erasmus." But time, and the scientific historian, 
have not dealt kindly with his fame, and his principal 
claim to our remembrance is that Holbein painted his 
portrait and Charles Reade w£Qte a mighty romance 
about his parents. 

There is also a church at Rotterdam, a great pile 
of brick fashioned to a shape somewhat Gothic, and 
dating from the middle of the fifteenth century, but 
in no way noteworthy save, perhaps, for its tower, a 
massive pile which dominates the country for miles 
around. And, lastly, there is the Boymans museum; 
but most of its pictures were destroyed by fire some 
forty years ago. I shall never forget our visit to it. 
We were passed from guardian to guardian — there 
is one in every room — like the most precious of 
treasures. Those old men were almost tearfully 
anxious that we should miss no picture worth seeing, 
making the most of their only visitors that morn- 
ing. 

The best pictures in the museum are, I think, the 
Cuyps, of which there are five or six, all of them 
full of light ; and a charming little landscape by 
Hobbema, one of the few by that artist which Holland 
still possesses. Here, too, we got our introduction 
to that endless procession of pictures of dead game, 



18 The Spell of Holland 

which crowd the walls of all Dutch galleries and 
which I detest. Any consideration of Dutch art may, 
however, be well postponed until we reach that su- 
preme treasure-house of Dutch paintings, the Rijks 
Museum at Amsterdam. An hour will suffice for 
the Boymans, and you have exhausted Rotterdam. 

For let me make the point here that Rotterdam is 
not characteristic of Holland. It is, perhaps, the 
least characteristic in the country, though Arnhem 
runs it a close second. It is modern and commercial; 
Arnhem is modern and residential — that is the differ- 
ence. The characteristic Dutch towns are not the 
big ones, but the little ones. This, I think, is true 
of every country ; but it is more true of Holland than 
of most, for there the big towns lack what every 
little town possesses — cleanliness and quiet and the 
air of the seventeenth century. The big towns are 
dirty and noisy and cosmopolitan, with a rage for 
modernity; hence they are not Dutch. And I urge 
here, as I shall all through this book, the necessity 
of staying in the little towns if one is really to see 
Holland. 

We took the tram, that afternoon, out to Delfts- 
haven, chiefly interesting to us Americans because it 
was from here, in 1620, that the Pilgrim Fathers set 
sail, intent on reaching a land where they could en- 
force their own ideas of Sabbath observance. For 
the Dutch thought, and still think, that Sunday was 
set apart as a day of relaxation. The old church, 



The City on the Rotte 19 

where the Pilgrims held their farewell service, is still 
standing, but is not otherwise of interest. 

From Delftshaven we went on to Schiedam — cele- 
brated for quite a different reason, for it is the home 
of " Hollands " and " Geneva," those potent and fiery 
schnapps of which the Dutchman is so fond, but one 
swallow of which paralyzes the unaccustomed palate 
and brings tears into the eyes. Yet Dutchmen drink 
them without apparent ill-effect — certainly I know 
of no land where the people seem so hearty, so defiant 
of the years. There is no more pleasing sight than 
an old white-haired, mahogany- faced Dutchman, with 
eyes as bright as coals, and a hand as steady as a 
youth's. The streets are full of them. 

Schiedam is given over to the manufacture of 
schnapps, and the air is scented with the aroma. One 
distillery follows another, and in each is the same 
fragrant steam, the same dimly-seen white-capped 
figures, the same great vats and vessels. We wan- 
dered about the streets for quite a while, with a string 
of children clattering behind staring at us, and found 
them quaint and interesting. In one little junk-shop 
we came very near buying a great old-fashioned, long- 
necked copper milk-can ; it was ridiculously cheap and 
very graceful, but there was no way to get it home 
short of carrying it, and I balked at that! 

The portier opened the door for us when we got 
back to our hotel, and I paused to ask him if the 
theatres were open. 



20 The Spell of Holland 

" Oh, yes, sir," he answered, in his slow and care- 
ful English. " The Casino Varieties has a very good 
program, with de la Mar, one of our best comedians. 
I would advise that you go." 

We did, and we were glad. The Casino Varieties 
is not a fashionable theatre, for the most expensive 
seats — the pit stalls and the front loge — are only 
a florin, and the cheapest ones probably no more than 
a few cents. But the audience was far more inter- 
esting to us than a fashionable one would have been, 
it was so natural and unstudied. In the pit below 
us a boy of ten or twelve, accompanied by his mother, 
was seated, and we were astounded to see him quietly 
take from his pocket and begin to smoke a cigar 
almost as big as himself. His mother did not seem 
to object, and, indeed, he handled the cigar as one 
old to the business. 

Not far from us were two couples, one middle- 
aged the other young, and both well-dressed. The 
younger couple was plainly in that seventh heaven of 
infatuation which renders its victims oblivious to 
their surroundings, for such kissing, such cheek-pat- 
ting and hair-smoothing you never saw ! The damsel, 
— she was really not bad-looking — would gaze 
fondly into the eyes of her adorer, and then imprint 
a soft and clinging kiss upon his lips. I confess I 
thought them wasted on so ugly an object. This 
went on all evening; the older couple took it as a 
matter of course; and the audience, while interested, 
did not seem surprised. 



The City on the Rotte 21 

There is one thing which may always be expected 
in a Dutch variety show, and that is at least one good 
acrobatic turn. This time there were two — one by 
a dancer of surprising agility, and the other by two 
young women on a flying trapeze. But the principal 
feature of the entertainment was a two-act comedy in 
which de la Mar took the leading part. We could, 
of course, understand nothing of the rapid dialogue, 
and it was, I suspect, rather ;y#lgar. But the acting 
was so pantomimic that we got almost as much pleas- 
ure from it as the rest of the audience. De la Mar's 
face is one of the drollest and most expressive I ever 
saw, resembling, in a way, the elder Coquelin's. He 
is a little stout man, and his manner on the stage is 
so deliberate and finished that it is a great delight. 

Betty had some letters to write, when we got back 
to the hotel, and I sat down for a talk with the portier, 
and a final cigar. Smoking gets to be an obsession 
in Holland. Cigars are so good and so cheap — due, 
of course, to Holland owning the source of supply, 
Sumatra — and they are displayed so attractively in 
the shop windows, that one is always slipping in and 
buying half a dozen and then smoking them one after 
the other. Every other shop is a tobacconist's, and 
each window displays more wonderful bargains than 
the last. I got so, before long, that if I failed to 
get a good cigar for a cent I felt myself cheated — 
but I rarely failed. The tobacconist slips your cigars 
into a tissue envelope, always leaving out one. This 
one he presses into a little machine which clips off 



22 The Spell of Holland 

its end, and he then presents it to you with a bow, 
so that you may commence smoking at once. 

No Dutchman leaves a tobacconist's without a cigar 
in his mouth, and most of them light a new cigar 
from the end of the old one. This saves matches. 
Pipes are not smoked nearly so much as cigars are 
— a fact which surprised me. 

Many tales are told of mighty smokers, but the 
greatest of them all lived here in Rotterdam. His 
allowance was six ounces a day, an amount which he 
never exceeded (and always consumed) ; and he lived 
to the ripe age of ninety-eight. All the smokers of 
the province were invited to his funeral. Each of 
them was presented with a pipe and pouch of tobacco 
and was requested to smoke without ceasing during 
the ceremony; while, at the dead man's desire, his 
favourite pipe, a large package of tobacco and a box 
of matches were laid ready to his hand in the coffin, 
because, as he remarked, " There is no telling what 
will happen ! " 

There is something about the Dutch climate which 
provokes to smoking. Perhaps it is the moisture; 
at any rate, when I reckoned up, at night, the num- 
ber of cigars I had smoked during the day, I was 
alarmed, and thought of heart- failure. But I never 
noticed any ill-effects from it; and when I saw the 
rosy old men going about the streets enveloped in a 
cloud of tobacco smoke which had never left them 
since infancy, I grew reassured. Holland, certainly, 
is the smoker's paradise! Salvation Yeo should have 



The City on the Rotte 23 

lived there! Those eloquent words of his in praise 
of the herb would have been emblazoned upon his 
monument. Do you remember them? 

"For when all things were made, none was made better 
than this same tobacco, to be a lone man's companion, a bach- 
elor's friend, a hungry man's food, a sad man's cordial, a 
wakeful man's sleep, and a chilly man's fire, sir; while for 
stanching of wounds, purging of rheum and settling of the 
stomach, there's no herb like unto it under the canopy of 
heaven." ^y 

I conceived quite a liking for the portier at the 
Weimar. He had lived in New York, and was plan- 
ning to return there. 

" I have a son," he said, " who will soon be old 
enough to be drafted into the army. I shall go back 
to America before that. But I will stay here as long 
as I can. My wages are not great, but I can live on 
them better here than in America. I have my own 
little house, and a garden; that would not be possible 
in New York. Besides, I should have to start there 
again as a waiter." 

"I hope to see you there, some day," I told him; 
and in future I shall look for him in the Broadway 
restaurants. 

"Thank you," he said; "and while you are here, 
I hope I may be of use to you. That is what I am 
for." 

And he told me a story. 

Once upon a time, an Englishman came to the 
Weimar straight from his native heath — the opin- 
ionated, self-satisfied, pig-headed type of Englishman 



24 The Spell of Holland 

which one meets so often on one's travels. After 
dinner the first evening, he started out to see the town. 

"Can I be of assistance to you, sir?" the portier 
asked. 

" Oh, no," said John Bull, haughtily, and stalked 
out. 

The hours passed and he returned not. Finally, 
sometime after midnight, he turned up, very weary 
and as mad as a hornet. 

"Give me my bill!" he shouted. "I'm going to 
leave — I won't sleep a night in this town ! " 

"Why, what's the trouble, sir?" asked the aston- 
ished portier. 

" Trouble ! Nobody but asses live here ; and 
demmed insulting asses at that ! " 

"Insulting!" repeated the portier. "Oh, no; I 
am sure they are not insulting!" 

" Then they're idiots ! They won't answer a civil 
question ! " 

"What question was it you asked them, sir?" in- 
quired the portier, patiently, determined to get to the 
bottom of this mystery. 

" The way to this street," said the visitor. " Oh, 
I'm no chicken; I know my way about. When I 
started out, I got the name of the street off the house 
at the corner and wrote it on my cuff. When I was 
ready to come back, I stopped a man and showed it 
to him — and what did he do ! " 

"What did he do?" 
Do — why he laughed and shrugged his shoulders 






a 



The City on the Rotte 25 

and went on. I tried a second, and he did the same. 
A third — and a fourth. Oh, a lot of asses, I tell 
you! I never should have got back if it wasn't for 
that big building over there. I saw it, at last, and 
recognized it." 

" Let me see what you have on your cuff, sir," said 
the portier. 

Then he, too, laughed, as he read the words " Ver- 
boden te Plakken," — which means " Post no Bills! " 



CHAPTER III 



ALONG THE MERWEDE 



Rotterdam is a convenient centre from which to 
visit various smaller towns in the neighbourhood, and 
one of these is Dordrecht, or Dort, as the Dutch 
familiarly call it. The best way to go to Dort is by 
boat, for then one approaches the town from the water 
and sees it in the aspect made so familiar by the 
pictures of Albert Cuyp. But we wanted to get there 
early in order to see the Friday market, so we went 
by train, reserving the boat trip for the return. 

It is only a twenty minute run from Rotterdam, 
and, very soon after our arrival, we were having our 
eggs and coffee at one of the little cafes bordering 
the Merwe-Kade, or steamboat pier, overlooking the 
wide river, which started on its career as the Rhine, 
and is here the Merwede, one of the busiest and most 
important in Holland. 

It was this river, indeed, which made Dort, in the 
old days, the richest city in the land, for here all 
the imports by way of the Rhine, especially Rhine 
wines, were unloaded and taxed before being passed 
on into the country. This Privilege of the Staple, as 
it was called, lasted for some hundreds of years; but, 
at last, Rotterdam, farther down the river, grew 

26 



Along the Merwede 27 

jealous and took up arms about it and Dort was com- 
pelled to waive the Privilege which she was not strong 
enough to defend. Since then, her prestige has 
steadily diminished, her wine-cellars are empty, and 
her streets are silent enough except on market-day. 

We sat for a long time watching the busy river- 
life, and then went back to the market, leaving the 
pier by the beautiful Groothoofd-Poort, or city gate, 
dating in its present form froi^ 1618 and decorated 
with fine reliefs. Among them is the coat-of-arms 
of Dort, a milkmaid under her cow, not a tribute to 
the commercial value of that quadruped, as in the 
north of Holland where the same device is used, but 
a remembrance of the gallant girl w r ho saved the town 
from surprise and capture by the Spaniards. For, 
starting forth in the early morning, three centuries 
and more ago, to carry her milk to the city, she 
caught sight of a Spanish force lying in ambush by 
the road, but went singing on her way as though 
she had seen nothing, and brought the news of their 
danger to the city fathers, so that presently, hearing 
the beating of drums, the Spaniards knew the town 
was warned and withdrew without attacking it. 

Dort's solitary horse-drawn tram-car — paard-tram 
is the Dutch of it — runs from the station through 
the town along a crooked street, under the water-gate, 
and so to the pier, its progress marked by the inces- 
sant clanging of a bell in the hands of the driver; 
so that, to reach the pier, arrivals by train have only 
to step on the tram and stay on to the end of its 



28 The Spell of Holland 

journey. But I advise that you walk, for the walk 
is well worth taking. Nowhere else will you see such 
red geraniums or such green grass as at Dort. Here, 
too, just after you leave the station, you come to a 
row of handsome residences facing the street, but 
each surrounded by its narrow canal as by a moat, 
and each with a little bridge going over. The use of 
a ditch in place of a wall or hedge is common enough 
in the country, but not in cities the size of Dort. 

The streets are narrow and crooked, and most of 
the houses lean over them so perilously that they 
seem about to fall; but we were assured that none 
has ever fallen and so, I suppose, none ever will. 
Indeed, the story goes that this inclination is the 
result of design and not of chance, and that the houses 
were built in this position in order to send the water 
from the roofs into the gutter and so protect the 
passer-by below. I am inclined to doubt the authen- 
ticity of this, for each building has an angle of its 
own. It is not uncommon to see a house three feet 
out of the perpendicular. 

Dort's market is held in the public square, about 
the statue of Ary Scheffer, who was born here, but 
who was not really a citizen of Dort since his father 
was a German merely stopping in the town. He 
stands on his pedestal, palette on thumb, looking pen- 
sively at the row of houses opposite as though about 
to paint them. Why an artist so inconsiderable as 
Scheffer should have been selected for this honour, 
when Dort was also the birthplace of Albert Cuyp 



Along the Merwede 29 

and Nicholas Maes and Ferdinand Bol, is one of those 
mysteries which I suppose can only be explained by 
the ineptitude of aldermanic bodies. 

The square is too small to contain all the market, 
so it overflows in each direction along the adjacent 
street, much to the inconvenience of the tram-car, 
whose bell is constantly in one's ears. There was a 
lively crowd eddying around the booths, each under 
its little tent, where one may buy anything — cigars, 
cheese, vegetables, post-cards, gold-fish, dry goods, 
hardware, old books, sheet music, patent medicine, 
baked eels, candy, shoes. Each booth-keeper adver- 
tises the merits and cheapness of his wares at the top 
of his voice, and the bargaining between buyer and 
seller is most spirited. I never before saw such 
enormous cauliflowers, and they cost only five cents 
Dutch apiece. The cheese looked so tempting that 
we bought some of it and consumed it later with our 
lunch and found it very good indeed. Also some 
nougat, by far the best we got anywhere in Holland. 

Dort is one of the wettest of Dutch cities. A great 
inundation in 1421, cut her off from the mainland 
and left her stranded on an island surrounded by 
the Merwede, the Maas and the Waal. Indeed, there 
is an old legend that the city itself was carried bodily 
down stream for some distance and that the neigh- 
bours had difficulty in finding it next day. Much of 
the water from these encircling rivers flows through 
her streets in the form of canals. Or, rather, through 
her alleys; for the canals are back of the houses and 



30 The Spell of Holland 

not in front of them, as at Delft. The water laps 
against their walls, and the tradesman rows along in 
his boat and delivers his goods through the back 
windows. The effect is especially picturesque along 
the main canal, which bisects the town from end to 
end, crossed by innumerable little bridges, and running 
far below the level of the streets. We stopped more 
than once to look at it on our way to the Groote 
Kerk, and the vistas were almost worthy of Venice. 

We found the koster of the church in a little house 
huddled between the wide brick buttresses; he wel- 
comed us with many bows, sold us two tickets, and 
then opened the transept door and invited us to 
enter. 

If one were to stroll into the Louvre and come 
suddenly upon the Venus de Milo embellished with 
a coat of red paint, his sensations, I imagine, would 
be much the same as those he experiences when first 
entering one of the old Dutch churches. For here, 
instead of the impressiveness of gray stone or the 
beauty of polychrome decoration, the eye encounters 
nothing but — whitewash ! A Gothic interior, white- 
washed ! Yet that is the tale which all Dutch churches 
have to tell; and not only whitewashed, but denuded 
and disfigured. 

Let me relate the dreadful story. 

The builders of the Gothic churches of Holland 
suffered a handicap at the very outset because they 
had to work in brick and not in stone. There is no 
building-stone in Holland, since its soil is merely the 




A DORDRECHT VISTA. 



Along the Merwede 31 

alluvium from the Rhine and other rivers, and to 
bring from other countries the quantity necessary to 
build a cathedral involved a prohibitive expense. An 
effort was usually made to secure enough for the 
traceries, the facings of the buttresses and ornamenta- 
tion of the western front, but even that was not 
always accomplished. 

Now stone is the natural material of Gothic archi- 
tecture; almost the inevitable material, for, without 
it, there can be none of that richness of decoration 
which renders the cathedrals of France and Belgium 
a wonder and delight. Indeed, it is structurally 
necessary, for flying buttresses can be rightly built 
of nothing else, and without flying buttresses to sus- 
tain the thrust, there can be no stone-vaulting over 
the nave and choir. It is scarcely necessary to add 
that, without stone, window-traceries, where possible 
at all, are of the simplest form. 

Dutch churches, therefore, so far as the exterior 
is concerned, are not inviting. They are merely bare 
and rather shapeless masses of brick, remarkable for 
nothing so much as for their size. A redeeming 
feature, which makes for picturesqueness, is the fact 
that little buildings of all sorts cling about them, 
leaning against their sides or huddling between their 
buttresses. Some persons complain of this, but to 
me the effect is very pleasing. Looking up at the 
great mass towering toward the heavens, one cannot 
but marvel at the patience with which these millions 
of clay blocks were piled one upon the other, and 



32 The Spell of Holland 

one sees in them another evidence of the untiring 
industry of the Dutch, whom no task appalls. 

The interior also suffers; in the first place from 
the lack of groining, usually replaced by wooden 
vaulting of the round or " barrel " type. Then the 
pillars of nave and choir are round, and there is want- 
ing, in consequence, that effect of airiness and upward- 
springing which clustered columns give, especially 
when one of the columns runs up to meet the groin- 
ing. The traceries of the windows are simple but 
sometimes very graceful, and, in the old days, when 
they were filled with painted glass, when the walls 
were frescoed, when the high altar stood in the choir 
with its dim candles before it, when the body of the 
church was embellished with the statues, pictures and 
other ornaments always to be found in Roman Catho- 
lic cathedrals, — one can imagine that under those 
conditions the interior of such an edifice would be 
impressive and even beautiful. But, alas! there are 
no such embellishments. The light streams untem- 
pered through white glass; the frescoes are covered 
with whitewash, the high altar, the statues, the pic- 
tures have been swept away; the church is cold, and 
bare, and barn-like. 

It came to pass in the days when Alva was trying 
to conquer the country for Spain, one night, at Ant- 
werp, a crowd broke into the cathedral and swept 
it bare; and in city after city throughout the Nether- 
lands this madness spread, until practically every 
church had been gutted of its treasures. Stained- 



Along the Merwede 33 

glass was demolished, statues pulled down, carvings 
shattered, paintings defaced. Until that momentous 
struggle was decided, these churches lay wrecked. 
Then, in Catholic Belgium, some semblance of their 
former beauty was restored to them ; but in Protestant 
Holland they were whitewashed and made to answer, 
as well as might be, the needs of the Dutch Reformed 
service. 

It was a makeshift at the lje^t, for a church built 
in the form of a cross, with aisles and chapels, is not 
suited to Dutch Reformed ceremonial — or lack of 
it. The choir was left empty, that no use might be 
made of the spot where had stood an idolatrous high 
altar. Against one of the pillars of the nave a wooden 
pulpit was affixed, and around this high wooden 
pews were grouped. Frequently wooden partitions 
were run up in order that the place might be more 
easily heated. And there you are. I have gone into 
this matter thus in detail because it applies to nearly 
all Dutch churches, and need be dealt with only once. 

So it was with a real sinking of the heart that we 
stopped inside the door of the church at Dort and 
looked about at its cold interior. And yet this church 
has points of beauty and relics of the old regime 
which are lacking in most of the others. In the first 
place, it is one of the very few Dutch churches with 
groining and stone-vaulting. Then there remain, in 
the otherwise empty choir, most of the old stalls; 
sadly mutilated, it is true, and with their canopies 
destroyed, but, nevertheless, most interesting examples 



34 The Spell of Holland 

of early sixteenth century carving. They were 
painted by some vandal at the same time, I suppose, 
that the walls were whitewashed, and, while the paint 
has been removed, the beautiful colour of the old oak 
is gone. They are the work of one Jan Aertsz, and, 
even in their dilapidated condition, are the most note- 
worthy remaining in Holland. 

There is one feature of Gothic choir-stalls which 
I never fail to examine, and that is the carving under 
the miserere seats, for it is here that Gothic humour 
revels unchecked. It is a broad and Rabelaisian 
humour, but always most human. For those who do 
not understand the term, let me explain that in each 
of the stalls is a hinged seat, which is turned up when- 
ever its occupant is standing. As these periods are 
very long, and as some of the monks were old and 
feeble, a little bracket was placed on the bottom of 
the seat, projecting far enough, when the seat is 
turned up, to afford some support to its occupant, 
who could thus go through the Mass in a half -stand- 
ing, half-sitting position less fatiguing than an un- 
supported one would have been. These little brackets 
are the miserere seats, and the carving is under them. 
The seat must, of course, be turned up in order that 
the carving may be examined. If you will look at 
the picture of the Haarlem choir-stalls opposite page 
134, you will see what I mean more clearly than any 
description can tell you. 

I have never seen more satisfying carving than that 
on these old seats at Dort. One represents a minor 



Along the Merwede 35 

offender with his legs in the stocks, but he is far 
from sad, for some friend has supplied him with a 
mammoth stein of beer, the foam of which is beauti- 
fully executed. Another shows the prodigal son, in 
a most dejected state, feeding two razor-back hogs. 
A third depicts Delilah at the moment she is despoil- 
ing Samson of his locks, while another close by shows 
Jael piercing Sisera's skull with a nail. Still another 
shows a man vigorously punching a boy, by apply- 
ing a switch to the pitifully-exposed culprit. 

We spent half an hour looking at these carvings, 
and admiring their details, and then took a general 
look around the church. It differs from most ante- 
reformation churches in being in the form of a 
Maltese cross, with nave and choir each of five bays. 
The lady chapel, instead of being, as usual, at the 
extreme east end, is at the north end of the north 
aisle. The effect is one of incompleteness, as though 
the work on the nave had been stopped before it was 
finished. The whitewash has been removed in places, 
laying bare the old frescoes, and the shattered traceries 
of the windows are being restored. 

The pulpits of these churches are always intri- 
cately carved, and the pews huddled about them are 
usually allotted to different classes of the population. 
Across the nave from the pulpit there is always an 
elaborate pew for the burgomeester or mayor and 
his family, and sections are set apart for the church 
officers, the burghers and their wives, the magistrates, 
the military, the servants, and so on. Very often 



36 The Spell of Holland 



each section, which is enclosed and partitioned off 
from all the others, has painted on it the name of the 
class for which it is intended. The poorer and less 
important the class, the less comfortable the seats; 
but the best of them must be uncomfortable enough, 
for they all have straight backs of wood, often with 
a moulding like a knife-edge across the top. To go 
to sleep in one of them would be physically impos- 
sible. 

We asked the koster if the burgomeester, for whom 
such gorgeous quarters were prepared, was a regular 
attendant; and he laughed and shook his head. He 
came back at me by asking whether the burgomeester 
of my town went to church regularly, and I was 
forced to confess that I thought not. And then he 
sighed and said that he supposed burgomeesters were 
much the same all the world over! 

In one corner against the wall was a pile of little 
wooden boxes, about six inches high and eight inches 
square, with a hinged door at one end and a per- 
forated top. We asked what these were, and learned 
that they were stoofjes, or foot- warmers. We had 
seen them many times in Dutch pictures without guess- 
ing their use. There is one, very carefully painted, 
in the left foreground of Jan Steen's masterpiece, 
"The Doctor's Visit/' at the Rijks. A metal or 
earthen dish containing a burning brick of peat, or 
" turf " as it is called in Holland, is slipped inside 
the box, and the woman sits with her feet on it and 
her petticoats over it, absorbing its grateful warmth. 




IN THE CHURCH AT DORT. 



Along the Merwede 37 

Andrew Marvell pictures the scene in his satire, " The 
Character of Holland " : 

See but their mermaids, with their tails of fish, 

Reeking at church over the chafing-dish! 

A vestal turf, enshrined in earthen ware, 

Fumes through the loopholes of a wooden square; 

Each to the temple with these altars tend, 

But still does place it at her western end; 

While the fat steam of female sacrifice 

Fills the priest's nostrils, and puts out his eyes. 

The " western end," as indicating the feet, is a 
good piece of Gothic imagery. 

Every private dwelling has these foot-warmers, and 
they must be particularly grateful in winter because 
of the tiled floors in most of the houses. Many of 
them are real works of art, made of teak wood, and 
elegantly carved. They are provided with handles, 
and it is no doubt a quaint and interesting sight to 
see a congregation gathering in winter, foot-warmers 
in hand. What the odour in the church must be from 
all this smouldering peat can be imagined. I should 
judge, too, from the scorched places on the floors 
of the pews, that there is often an incipient confla- 
gration, which must interfere sadly with the serv- 
ices. 

We bade good-bye to the bright-eyed old koster, 
and retraced our steps to the market-place, where we 
had lunch on the balcony of a little cafe overlooking 
the square. The unsold merchandise was being 
packed away, and the tents rolled up and loaded upon 
little carts, to be brought back a week hence. The 



38 The Spell of Holland 

market-people were gathered in groups, chattering, I 
suppose, over the day's business; and always Ary 
Scheffer stood looking serenely across the square, 
palette on thumb. 

We had a fine view of the town as we sailed away, 
soon afterwards, on the little boat bound for Gorin- 
chem (pronounced Gorcum) ; the picturesque square- 
topped tower of the church, with its four great dials, 
in their clumsy frames, so familiar from Cuyp's pic- 
tures, looming above it. 

The river, that afternoon, was bright with craft of 
all sizes and degrees of picturesqueness ; great ship- 
yards lined the banks; here and there, whole flotillas 
of barges, anchored together in the middle of the 
stream, awaited the call of traffic. The boat stopped 
at this landing and that — at Benedenveer, Midden- 
veer, Giessendam — little villages built along facing 
the river, with children playing on the watersteps and 
women going up and down them with pails of water 
for the unceasing scrubbing. They were scrubbing 
windows and doorsteps, the outsides of the houses, 
the bricks of the sidewalks, and even the cobbles of 
the streets. Scrubbed furniture was standing out to 
dry; rugs from which came no speck of dust were 
being violently beaten and shaken. It is a mania. 
All over Holland it is a mania. One is constantly 
stepping aside to avoid the rills of water resulting 
from this scrubbing. The beating of rugs is an 
accompaniment to all the other noises of the country. 
It never ceases. 



Along the Merwede 39 

Scores and scores of brown nets were stretched 
to dry along the banks, for this is a famous salmon- 
fishing neighbourhood; and dozens of men and boys, 
rod in hand, were sitting on the piers and along the 
river-wall patiently watching diminutive corks ; though 
we saw nothing caught except one small eel. Between 
the villages, the banks were covered with a rank 
growth of reeds, tall grasses and bulrushes. The 
reeds are used for thatching, and we saw great bundles 
of them, brown and dry, piled up in the yards of 
the dealers. 

It was at Giessendam that we first noticed a phe- 
nomenon, which we saw many times thereafter — 
trees trained fan- wise to form a sort of aerial hedge 
close before the upper stories of the houses. We did 
not know at the time how it was done, but we saw 
the modus operandi afterwards. The trees are 
planted about a yard in front of the house, and then 
a strong framework is built between them to which 
the branches are trained with a patience almost Japa- 
nese, so that they all grow either to the right or to 
the left. When the tree has grown quite large, the 
framework is taken down, and year by year there- 
after the trees are trimmed, until they form a close 
screen before the upper story of the house — a screen 
frequently not over a foot thick and quite perfect. 
If there is a window in the upper story, a correspond- 
ing opening is cut in the screen. The effect is most 
peculiar and picturesque. I have seen a few two- 
storied screens of this kind — first the tree-trunks, 



40 The Spell of Holland 

then the screen of branches in front of the first 
story; then another stretch of trunk and then the 
screen in front of the second story. Artifice can no 
further go. 

At Giessendam, just back of the landing, is a little 
inn I should like to visit; a quieter place I cannot 
imagine, and the effect of quiet and seclusion is 
enhanced by the fact that it has one of these aerial 
screens all around it, with an opening here and 
there for a window. Beside it was a most pictur- 
esque stable-yard, and, in the door, a white-capped, 
red-cheeked juffrouw to make the stranger wel- 
come! 

It took us nearly an hour and a half to reach 
Gorinchem, a clean little town, especially interesting 
for its old houses of stone and brick, with mosaic 
decorations, very odd and charming. Here, too, we 
first noticed the gayly-painted wooden canopies over 
the windows, which we found afterwards in every 
small town and in many of the large ones, and whose 
use I was never able to understand. I concluded, 
finally, that they had no use, but were placed there 
for ornament. How ideas of ornament vary! We 
walked around to the church, with its great square 
brick tower, all tilted to one side, and ornamented 
with beautifully-carved stone trimmings. But we did 
not go in. A glimpse, through a window, of the bare 
and whitewashed interior was enough. 

It was to Gorinchem that Hugo Grotius was 
brought in a box from the castle of Loevenstein, a 



Along the Merwede 41 

little way up the river, where he had been imprisoned 
— a method of escape devised by his wife and admira- 
bly carried out; and it was from here that he set 
forth in disguise for Antwerp, never to return to his 
native land until brought back to be buried in the 
church at Delft. 

We had tea on a little vine-embowered, geranium- 
bordered balcony overlooking the harbour, where we 
watched two men poling a greatikrge from one side 
to the other, with incredible exertion. The man takes 
his station near the prow, drops a long, spiked pole 
to the river-bottom, places the other end against his 
shoulder, leans his weight on it, and walks toward 
the stern of the boat. The pressure against the 
shoulder must be something terrific, but, even at the 
best, the boat moves only a foot or two. When he 
arrives at the stern, he adjusts the rudder, and then 
goes back for another push. There may be more 
fatiguing labour, but I don't know what it is; and 
this is going on all over Holland from morning till 
night, the women lending a hand — or shoulder — 
at need! 

The ringing of a bell at the landing told us that 
the boat was ready to start on the return trip, and 
we hastened to get on board. The sun was just set- 
ting as we reached Dort, and, as we swung out again 
into the river for the run to Rotterdam, the sky was 
painted red and purple, which the river was a mirror 
to reflect. We were in new country, now — beauti- 
ful, well-kept country — stopping at Papendrecht — 



42 The Spell of Holland 

where, just opposite the landing, is a beautiful little 
house I know I could be happy in — and at other 
villages with many-syllabled names. The river traf- 
fic is very heavy, for this is the main artery of 
southern Holland, and the Fop Smith Company, 
which controls the passenger steamers, proudly an- 
nounces that it carries over a million passengers 
yearly. It deserves to, for its steamers are very com- 
fortable and well-appointed, and its fares surprisingly 
low. A first-class ticket from Gorinchem to Rot- 
terdam, a distance of about thirty-five miles, taking 
three hours to cover, costs seventy-five cents Dutch, 
or about thirty cents American. 

We had a perfect entry into Rotterdam, whose 
lights swung into view miles ahead, with a great 
electric sign gleaming atop the Witte Huis, the high- 
est private building in Europe, — a ten-storied apart- 
ment house, reaching the unprecedented altitude of 
one hundred and thirty feet. It was just opposite 
our hotel, and had been pointed out to us with much 
pride by the portier. " Though," he remarked, dep- 
recatingly, " you have higher ones in New York ! ,; 
Sir Thomas Lipton has secured the top of this giant 
for his own, and " Lipton Thee " was spelled out 
across the sky in gigantic letters, over and over, as 
we glided down the river. 

The full moon was sailing up the sky, and sent 
a broad band of silver light over the dancing water. 
Every lamp, every light at prow and masthead of the 
innumerable boats, was reflected in it, and we seemed 



Along the Merwede 43 

drifting into fairy-land. But the bell jingled, the 
boat bumped gently against the wharf, ropes were 
made fast, the gang-plank run out, and we were again 
on the cobbles of Rotterdam. 



CHAPTER IV 



FIRST LESSONS IN DUTCH 



No one should visit Holland without Motley in 
his head and Baedeker in his pocket. Without 
Motley, you will lose much of the interest of nearly 
every town you visit, for they all had a part, and 
usually a tragic one, in that mighty struggle which 
resulted in Dutch independence. Without Baedeker 
you can't find your way about — unless you engage 
a guide or trust yourself to the intelligence of a cab- 
driver — a depth to which I am firmly convinced no 
self-respecting person will descend. For Baedeker I 
have an admiration the most profound. He is all but 
omniscient ; and I cannot find it in my heart to blame 
him if he sometimes mistakes his right hand for his 
left. I often do! 

Let me add here that this little volume is neither 
a history nor a guide-book, and, in writing it, I am 
taking it for granted that you know your Motley, and 
have your Baedeker ready to hand. 

Already we are picking up some Dutch words, and 
we have found out that Dutch sometimes curiously 
resembles English. " Heet water " is hot water and 
is pronounced "hate vater;" " bagage " is baggage; 
" bed " is bed. Bed-room is, however, " slaapkamer " 

44 



First Lessons in Dutch 45 

or sleep-chamber — a nice distinction. But some 
words are surprisingly different. Breakfast, for in- 
stance, is " ontbijt." The word has a most uncanny 
appearance, and it was a long time before we realized 
that a door with " Ontbijtkamer " on it indicated the 
entrance to the breakfast-room. 

The time-table tells us that a " spoorweg " is a rail- 
way, and a " boot " a boat. A " stoomboot " is, of 
course, a steamboat. It is well to remember that in 
Dutch oo does not take the sound it does with us, 
as in shoot, but the long 6 sound. Thus " boot " 
is pronounced boat. The inquiry which you will have 
oftenest to repeat is to ask the way to your destina- 
tion, whatever it may be. At first we were content 
simply to name the destination and permit our in- 
formant to infer we wished to get there. Now we 
have grown more ambitious and have added four 
words to the inquiry — " Hoe ga ik naar," which 
means, " How do I go to." " Hoe ga ik naar de 
stoomboot naar Rotterdam," for instance. That may 
not be good Dutch, but it seems to be intelligible. 
The Dutch word for " the," by the way, makes one 
smile. For masculine and feminine nouns it is " de " ; 
but for neuter nouns, it contains the same letters 
as our " the," only, in some inexplicable way, they 
have been juggled into " het." 

We are also getting accustomed to the use of " ij ' 
for y. There is no y in the Dutch alphabet — the 
ij has never coalesced. Consequently bakery is 
" bakkerij," and a dairy is a " melkerrij," or milkery, 



46 The Spell of Holland 

which proves that the Dutch do not coin words un- 
necessarily. The remarkable word, " maatschappij ,: 
is very common on sign-boards, and it puzzled us for 
a long time; but we got the key in " mateship," or 
" comradeship," as we would say, partnership or com- 
pany. What misled us at first is that, alas, in our 
companies there is so little idea of comradeship! 

There are some articles of food, too, which it is 
well to know the names of. Cheese is easy — " kaas." 
Coffee is " kaffie." Milk is " melk " — pronounced 
in two syllables, " mel-ek." The Dutch do not seem 
to be able to curve their tongues to make one syllable 
of a vowel followed by the letter 1. Half is " hal-ef," 
Delft is " Del-eft," and so on. We had great fun, 
one evening, trying to teach a pretty waitress to say 
milk, short and sharp in one syllable. But she 
couldn't do it. 

It is difficult to recognize the Irish potato in " aard- 
appellen," or " earth-apples," and curious to reflect 
that the Dutch have hit upon the same descriptive 
definition as the French, though superficially " aard- 
appellen " looks little enough like " pommes de terre." 
For a long time we were unable to get pancakes for 
breakfast, until we stumbled upon the Dutch word, 
" pannankoeken." Now we have pancakes whenever 
we want them, which is often, for Dutch pancakes 
are very good. 

And the strawberries ! " Aardbezie " it is in Dutch 
— " earth-berry " — remember that word ! There 
never were such strawberries. Bishop Berkeley re- 



First Lessons in Dutch 47 

marked, some two hundred years ago, that God could 
doubtless have made a better berry than the straw- 
berry, if He had put his mind to it, but He never did. 
And it is in Holland that human culture has brought 
this divine delicacy to perfection. The middle of 
June sees the real beginning of the season, which lasts 
about a month, and it is worth while to plan to visit 
Holland at that time, if only for those incomparable 
berries. They are enormous, a^perfect red, and the 
most luscious you ever tasted, melting, juicy, and 
so sweet that sugar is unnecessary. 

Which is as well, for sugar is expensive in Holland 
and therefore dealt out charily. The government tax 
is something like two hundred per cent — hence the 
vigilance of the customs! Few hotels allow more 
than two lumps of sugar to a cup of coffee. If you 
w r ant more than that, it is an extra which must be 
asked for and often paid for. Except at the Hotel 
de l'Europe at Antwerp, which is just across the 
Scheldt in Belgium and so outside this book, but a 
good story goes anywhere! 

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, there 
arrived at the Hotel de l'Europe an American who 
had formed the habit of spoiling his coffee with three 
lumps of sugar. At each meal, therefore, he asked 
for more sugar. He took four meals at the hotel, 
and when his bill was rendered he found that he had 
been charged one franc extra for those four lumps. 
He paid without a protest, and went out, and came 
back presently carrying a great sack of sugar. 



48 The Spell of Holland 

i 

" Here," he said, " take this, and whenever any 
of my countrymen come here and ask for an extra 
lump of sugar, give it to them out of this, without 
charge." 

Monsieur the proprietor promised that he would. 
So if you are an American, and delay your arrival 
at Antwerp not too long, you can get an extra lump 
of sugar for nothing at the Hotel de l'Europe. 

By all means spend a day at Gouda, one of the 
prettiest and brightest of Dutch towns. You can get 
a round trip ticket from Rotterdam, going by rail 
and returning by river, second-class on the train and 
first-class on the boat, for eighty-five cents Dutch 
— a cheap trip, surely. It is about twelve miles from 
Rotterdam, and the train runs through a rich and 
beautiful country, with luxuriant fields, and innu- 
merable canals. To the left, you will see the great 
Zuidplas-Polder, a polder being the bottom of a 
lake which has been pumped dry. There are many 
thousands of acres of such reclaimed land in Holland, 
and it is the most fertile in the country. Polders are 
always laid out with rule and line, the rectangular 
fields divided by little ditches, and bearing every 
variety of crop. 

Gouda, which is pronounced " Howda," is charac- 
teristically Dutch, it is so quiet and so clean. And 
yet not clean enough to suit the women who live there, 
for they were busily engaged that Saturday morning 
scrubbing and scraping and scouring it. Saturday is 



First Lessons in Dutch 49 

always a great cleaning day all over Holland, because 
it will not be possible to clean things again until 
Monday. And Monday is also a great cleaning day, 
because, of course, nothing has been cleaned since 
Saturday. 

So the good wives of Gouda, assisted by all the 
servants, were out in force that morning, and the 
streets ran with water. Water was everywhere, 
trickling down the house- fronts, running out the 
doors, splashing over the sidewalks. The women, 
their skirts tucked up, their sleeves rolled back, their 
faces flushed w T ith exertion and set in a kind of frenzy, 
come and go, carrying great pails of water. The 
pails are of copper and are painted red inside — a 
note of colour. The water is splashed over the house- 
fronts, and dashed over the pavements; through half- 
open doors we can see that the furniture has all been 
removed while the floors and walls of the rooms are 
being scrubbed. The women climb ladders, hang 
suspended through open windows, strain and twist 
and perform feats almost acrobatic, for the whole 
front of the house must be polished with damp cloths. 
Then the pavement must be wiped up, the windows 
cleaned until they shine, the door-knob and bell-pull, 
the very nails of the door burnished until they glitter 
like spots of gold and silver. All the rugs must be 
brought out and beaten, and the furniture wiped off 
before it is set in place again. 

It was a never-failing source of delight to us to 
watch the way in which a rug is beaten. A maid 



50 The Spell of Holland 

brings it out, slams it down on the sidewalk, and 
then attacks it with a beater made of cane. The 
attack is vigorous and even vicious; the lusty whacks 
sound like the rapid reports of a gatling gun, and 
they continue for a long time. But never did we 
see a speck of dust fly from any rug. 

Large rugs receive a different sort of treatment, 
even more drastic. A woman takes hold of either 
end, and stretching the rug between them, they pull 
back and throw it upward with a sharp report. It 
is quite a trick, I fancy, and it certainly snaps the 
dust out, if there is any present. More than once 
have I been awakened by strange sounds outside the 
window, like the measured and regular reports of a 
pistol. The first time, I arose and looked out to 
see if there was a duel in progress; but it was only 
a duel against dirt. How many times have I caught 
this sound echoing over the countryside or rising 
above the other noises of a busy street, and stopped 
to admire the dexterity with which the rug was 
handled ! 

One is apt to suspect exaggeration in the accounts 
of this frenzy for cleanliness which burns in the 
breast of every Dutch woman; but when he has 
seen it he knows that it is incapable of exaggeration. 
And as I write these lines, one of the phenomena 
of my boyhood is suddenly explained to me. Not 
far from where we lived there was a woman who, 
every Saturday, carried all her furniture out into 
the yard and scrubbed her house from top to bottom. 



First Lessons in Dutch 51 

The stone before the front door had been scrubbed 
almost away, and I remember watching her patiently 
wiping out the dust between the slats of the shutters. 
Not until this minute have I understood it; but now 
I realize that she was Dutch. 

The Dutch idea seems to be that a house should be 
soaped and sponged and rubbed like a person. As 
M. de Amicis puts it, it is not cleaning, it is making 
a toilette. ^ 

At Gouda, as at all small Dutch towns, we made 
our way first to the market-place, for the market- 
place is always the centre of interest. Most towns 
have grown up about a market-place; the oldest 
buildings look down upon it, the town-hall, the weigh- 
house, the church; the best shops and brightest 
restaurants are grouped about it; one day in every 
week, and sometimes oftener, its cobbles are covered 
by little booths for the market; in the summer eve- 
nings, the town band assembles here for the weekly 
or semi-weekly concert; and from first to last it 
continues to be the centre of the town's life. 

The square at Gouda is very interesting and 
characteristic. In the middle of it stands a gay little 
white stadhuis, very tall and very narrow, with a 
roof all pinnacles and stepped gables, mounting to 
a slender tower. A double flight of steps lead to the 
door, ornamented with sculptured figures in every 
crevice. 

Back of it is the old weigh-house, with painted 
shutters, the arms of Holland under the gable, and 



52 The Spell of Holland 

a remarkable relief over the central door showing a 
large beam-scale in operation, with an interested group 
looking on. The square is surrounded by little shops, 
and must be an animated place on market-days. 

A little farther on is the church, reached by a 
narrow passage between quaint old houses, with the 
Manse on one side and the koster's dwelling huddling 
among the buttresses on the other. No lover of " The 
Cloister and the Hearth '" can enter this little court 
without a quickening of the pulse, for it was here 
that Gerhardt Eliassoen found shelter at last; it was 
here that he and Margaret won peace in labouring 
for others, and it is in Gouda cemetery that they 
lie buried in one grave. 

The church is the usual great pile of brick, bare 
and grim without and white-washed within, with ugly 
barrel-vaulting, and scant round pillars, and carved 
pulpit and huddled pews. For one thing, however, 
it is remarkable — by some miracle, its stained glass 
has been preserved, and the coloured light which filters 
through it lends a certain mystery and charm to its 
gaunt outlines. 

Most of the glass dates from the middle of the 
sixteenth century, and was given to the church by 
various municipalities and great men, so that coats- 
of-arms and heraldic devices and even portraits of 
the donors are intertwined with scriptural scenes. 
Philip II. of Spain, for instance, gave one of the 
windows, and his portrait appears in its representa- 
tion of the last supper — a masterpiece of irony. 



First Lessons in Dutch 53 

The windows seem to me striking rather than beauti- 
ful, possessing a certain richness and depth of tone, 
but too confused and crowded with action, like some 
of Rubens's canvases. But I am no judge, and can 
only record my individual impression. 

There is a bosky little park back of the church, 
with a placid canal running around it. Farther on 
is quite a large canal, in which piany boys and men 
were fishing for roach. Betty is a devotee of the 
rod, and I gave one of the boys a few coppers to 
let her fish for awhile. Sour bread is used as bait, 
and has a way of coming off the hook, so that fre- 
quent renewals are necessary. Our youngster was 
most economical of his bread and the pieces he put 
on the hook were almost invisible. One of the boys 
had caught a few minute fish, and had them in one 
of his wooden shoes, half filled with water. But 
Betty got not even a bite. 

We loitered about the little town for quite a while, 
looking at the houses, smiling and nodding in answer 
to the smiles and nods we got on every side from 
the friendly people, the object of much good-natured 
curiosity. Betty was wearing a close-fitting sweater 
and this seemed to draw all eyes and occasion 
animated discussion everywhere. Dutch women en- 
deavour to conceal the lines of the figure, and for this 
purpose wear stays that are straight up and down, 
and sometimes a tight bandage wrapped around and 
around the body. They have no waists, and their 
habit of wearing ten or twelve petticoats, one over 



54 The Spell of Holland 

the other, has the effect of raising their hips to a 
point not very far below their arm-pits. In con- 
sequence, they are scant above and voluminous below. 

I suppose Betty's sweater and straight walking- 
skirt revolted their sense of propriety. At any rate, 
they gathered in doorways and stared, excitedly 
calling other members of the family to see the ex- 
hibition ; while children scuttled forward to shout 
the glad tidings of the approaching spectacle. The 
excitement was not allayed until Betty slipped on 
her raincoat. 

A peculiar feature of Dutch towns is the fact that 
the side-walks seem to be considered private prop- 
erty, and are shut off by little railings or fences of 
iron or brass, or sometimes by a festooned chain. 
Each householder has the walk in front of his house 
railed off in this way. Consequently one is forced 
to walk in the street, and the cobbles are anything 
but pleasant. Klinkers, which are little hard bricks, 
are used sometimes for the pavement. They are set 
on edge and even arranged in patterns of yellow 
and red. The side-walks are more elaborate, usually 
of tile or coloured stone, laid in mosaic. They are 
the pride of the housewives, and the objects of in- 
cessant scrubbing. But they are plainly intended for 
ornament and not for use. 

We made our way to the pier, at last, and clambered 
aboard the little boat for the journey down to Rotter- 
dam. It was the pleasantest trip imaginable, for the 
river winds in, and out, sometimes forming a regular 



First Lessons in Dutch 55 

letter S, around the curves of which careful steering 
is required. I watched a sail-boat beating around 
these curves, and a delicate bit of seamanship it was. 
Long lines of loaded barges were being towed down 
to Rotterdam, and to get these around the bends in 
the river was also a delicate art, for they would 
frequently be pointing in two or three different 
directions. 

We saw our first stork at Oudekerk, standing con- 
templatively on one leg at the edge of a great nest 
on the rear gable of a church. Just below was an- 
other nest with the mother and three young ones in 
it, and still further down, a third nest, also on a 
church gable. Some of the churches were flying flags 
to indicate that a wedding was in progress. 

As we gazed to right and left across the low 
country, we realized for the first time the real hollow- 
ness of " Hollow-land," for the river was at least 
twenty feet above the surface of the land, and we 
could just see the roofs and gables of the houses 
built along it peeping above the bank. 

The Dutch are great consumers of brick, and vast 
quantities are made along this stretch of river. We 
passed yard after yard with long rows of new-made 
bricks stacked up to dry. Most of the work is done 
by hand; and gangs of labourers were carrying the 
heavy clay from the scows to the moulding-houses 
in shoulder-baskets, each holding perhaps a hundred 
pounds. Some of these carriers, all soiled and clay- 
bedaubed, were women — young women, for old 



56 The Spell of Holland 

«■———■—■——— —^ ^— ^— — — ^— — — — ^^^i— ^— ^— — —^ 

ones could not have stood it for an hour. And 
everywhere other women, more fortunate than those 
poor bedraggled slaves of the clay-pits, in that they 
had a house to look after and presumably a family 
to attend to, were dipping up the water in huge 
buckets and scrubbing the houses and steps and 
pavements and furniture and household utensils. 

We got back to Rotterdam in time for the Satur- 
day night market, which stretched for blocks along 
one of the widest streets. Everybody was out for 
the evening, and the streets were crowded ; — little 
soldiers with red-cheeked girls on their arms; boys 
calmly puffing at great cigars; bright-eyed, ruddy- 
cheeked old men ; old women with faces like withered 
apples. We walked past the towering pile of the 
Groote Kerk for a look at it in the twilight, and 
then about the streets, watching the people, looking 
in the shop-windows, stopping at a cafe, savouring to 
the full all these strange sights and sounds and 
smells. It was a good-natured crowd, as every 
crowd in Holland is, and the streets were thronged 
until late into the night. 



CHAPTER V 



TRAMS AND TREKSCHUITS 



If one is modest in one's needs and content to 
travel with light luggage, it is.^yfery easily managed 
in Holland, for a bag can be sent ahead by train 
from one town to the next for about ten cents, and 
the traveller is free to follow leisurely by tram or 
trekschuit, and to stop off wherever he pleases. Now 
when one is travelling, to be free of luggage is to 
be care-free, and is worth some sacrifice. 

Not that any great sacrifice is necessary. One soon 
finds out how few the really essential things are — 
essential, that is, to cleanliness and comfort. A trunk 
may be used as a source of supplies and sent from 
one large city to another; but for day-to-day travel- 
ling, a suitcase for each person is amply sufficient. 
More than that is a nuisance. 

One never suspects how many travellers are slaves 
to their luggage until one gets to Europe and sees 
the poor, distracted creatures searching through great 
piles of trunks in the stations or arguing with gold- 
laced officials, who understand not one word in ten 
of what is said to them, and who wish to understand 
not even that. Many people prepare for a European 
trip as though it were wildest Africa they were going 

57 



58 The Spell of Holland 

to penetrate — a savage country where none of the 
trappings of civilization could be obtained, and where 
laundries were unknown. I shall never forget the 
increasing disgust with which, as our journey pro- 
gressed, Betty and I contemplated the huge pile of 
handkerchiefs we had brought along, nor the weeding- 
out process which resulted in our getting everything 
we needed for day-to-day travelling into one bag 
for both of us. 

Economy in luggage means economy of time and 
temper, to say nothing of economy of money, for 
baggage is an expensive luxury in Europe, where 
every piece which you cannot carry with you into 
your compartment must be weighed and paid for. 
One doesn't mind paying for what one needs, or wants, 
or gets pleasure from, but I know of no reflection 
more provoking than that one is wasting time and 
money dragging a lot of useless luggage about Europe 
with him. 

Oir stay at Rotterdam was finished, and sending 
our bags on to Delft by train, we embarked at noon 
on Sunday on a tiny steamboat which plied along 
the narrowest of canals. The seats were camp-chairs 
arranged in two rows on top of the low cabin, and 
they were all taken, for Sunday is a holiday with 
the Dutch and they make the most of it — especially 
when it is as bright and pleasant as that Sunday was. 
The people were all dressed in their best — the men 
in "decent black," shining from constant brushing; 



Trams and Trekschuits 59 

the women in bright silk bodices and spreading petti- 
coats. 

The captain of the craft was a wrinkled and 
weather-beaten old Dutchman, yet looking wonder- 
fully healthy and hearty, whose principal business 
was to collect the fares and warn his passengers to 
duck their heads to escape the bridges. He also 
assisted the deck-boy in lowering the funnel for the 
same purpose, and at every s6eh operation the un- 
fortunate second-class passengers in the stern were 
deluged with smoke and covered with smuts. Some 
of the bridges were too low for us to pass, and had 
to be tilted up out of the way by a system of counter- 
weights; and when this was necessary, or when we 
went through a lock, there was a toll to pay, which 
was collected in a wooden shoe at the end of a fish- 
ing-line. 

Wooden shoes are useful for many things besides 
for footwear. One of their nicest uses, I think, is 
to tell how many of the family are at home. They 
are never worn in the house — even leather ones send 
a thrill of horror and dismay to the heart of the 
cleanly huisvrouw. Wooden shoes are slipped off just 
outside the door, with a movement incredibly quick, 
and the family goes about indoors in its stocking- feet, 
which must be trying in winter, for the floor is usually 
of tile. Cloth slippers are worn, however, and in 
some places stockings are made with leather soles — 
more, no doubt, to protect the stocking than the foot 
within it. 



60 The Spell of Holland 

So one can always tell how many people are inside 
the house by the number of shoes before the door. 
It looks very quaint to see those big and little shoes 
standing there, all pointed toward the door, just as 
they were stepped out of. And, let me add, that 
the door to which I refer is the back door and not 
the front door. The latter is opened only for 
marriages and funerals and such-like important cere- 
monies; but the family makes its exits and entrances 
at the back door, and callers always knock therq. 

Once clear of Rotterdam, the little canal ran past 
quiet fields and pleasant villages and placid farmsteads, 
and we were so close to the people on the banks that 
we could almost have shaken hands with them. Nearly 
every family was sitting in a little arbour or summer- 
house overlooking the canal, and trifling with tea or 
coffee or refreshments of some sort. They looked 
very happy and contented, and most of them waved 
to us as we passed. 

Every Dutch house has its garden, however small, 
and the garden is always beautifully kept and luxuriant 
with bloom. The roses, grown like little trees, with 
a stem an inch in diameter and three or four feet 
high, are a constant delight. I have seen the state- 
ment many times that the Dutch do not really care 
for flowers, that they cultivate them merely to sell, 
but I do not believe it. For flowers are used every- 
where, much more abundantly than in this country, 
and if appearances count for anything, the Dutch 
care a good deal more for them than we do. 



Trams and Trekschuits 61 

We presently passed a great barge loaded with 
flowers being towed in to Rotterdam for the Monday 
market, and such a mass of bloom I never saw before. 
The flowers were arranged in crates, one above the 
other, and I have only to close my eyes to see that 
mass of delicate pinks and whites and deep reds float 
by. 

When a Dutch garden has a c^nal at its foot it 
is complete; for then you can sit in the back yard 
and fish, or lounge in the summer-house and watch 
the boats go by. These arbours are always gay and 
highly-coloured, and the Dutch seem to be very fond 
of sitting in them. And, let me add, most Dutch 
gardens do look out on a canal; for in this country 
nearly every house is a port where one may take 
boat for any part of the world. 

Our little boat chug-chugged placidly along, stop- 
ping at numerous landings, delivering a passenger 
sometimes at his very door, passing groups of boys 
in swimming, the captain exchanging greetings with 
friends along the banks, with everybody in the best 
possible of humours. We passed some beautiful wind- 
mills, and always there were two or three on the 
horizon, with cows and sheep grazing in the inter- 
vening meadows, and men and boys fishing in the 
streams. Fishing seems to be a recognized Sunday 
sport, and Dutch boys do not have to do it sur- 
reptitiously, as I did. It is taken very seriously, and 
the Dutch fisherman goes forth fearfully and wonder- 
fully equipped, with rod and minnow-bucket and 



62 The Spell of Holland 

creel and landing-net and lunch-basket and camp-chair, 
and other implements whose use I do not know. 
Sometimes you will see a fishing-club starting out, 
looking like a company of Tartarins equipped for 
the Jungfrau. But I have never seen them catch a 
fish which warranted any paraphernalia more elabo- 
rate than a piece of string and a bent pin. 

At the end of an hour and a half of this pleasant 
travel, Delft loomed ahead of us, with the tall tower 
of the Nieuwe Kerk looking particularly imposing. 
At the landing, as we were inquiring the way to the 
Hotel Central, to which the portier at the Weimar 
had recommended us, a tall and gawky fellow, 
evidently very proud of his halting English, came 
forward and offered to accompany us, as it was on 
his way home, but I have since suspected that it was 
in quite the opposite direction. En route, he regaled 
us by enumerating the picture post-cards which had 
been sent him by Americans he had met at Delft, and 
it sounded like the catalogue of ships in the Iliad. 
He had evidently committed them to memory, and 
rattled off the list in a high, nasal sing-song which 
threatened to be never-ending. We promised to add 
one to the collection. He also told us that Delft was 
a dead and uninteresting place and was astonished 
when he learned that we contemplated staying there 
for some days. 

We found the Central a typical little Dutch inn, 
scrupulously clean and with a head waiter most 
anxious to please. He had married an English wife 



Trams and Trekschuits 63 

— just why or where I never learned — and he 
introduced her to us next day and was evidently very 
proud of her, and was working every day to improve 
his English, in the hope of some time getting to that 
paradise of waiters, New York. He was the only 
one about the place who could speak any English, 
and he answered the bell every time we rang, the 
chambermaid evidently fearing even to be seen by 
the strange foreign monsters ; but I believe the failure 
of all the other employes to understand us was due 
largely to the fact that they were too scared to listen. 
I don't know why, but whenever we addressed them 
they grew visibly paler, and I would almost swear they 
trembled. It was so everywhere — at Haarlem, at 
Enkhuisen, at Kampen. At the latter place it was 
really ridiculous, — but I shall tell about that in time. 

We strolled forth into the town, after lunch, and 
found it indeed dead, for everyone had joined the 
Sunday rush to The Hague and Scheveningen, only 
a few miles away. We decided that we might as 
well do so, too, in order to see that famous watering- 
place at its best — on a bright Sunday afternoon at 
the height of the season. A steam-tram runs from 
Delft to The Hague, covering the distance in a few 
minutes, and we were soon set down at the border 
of the Dutch capital. From there another tram took 
us to the " Plein," where we caught still another to 
reach the edge of the wood on the " Oude Weg " to 
Scheveningen. 

I have traversed that old road many times, but 



64 The Spell of Holland 



never has it lost its charm for me, with its great 
trees cut into six avenues, its merry children, its fresh- 
faced nurse-maids, its promenading couples, — yes, 
even its tram-cars. These tall trees, with the wood 
to the right, are all that remain of the great forest 
which once ran all along this coast — a single other 
remnant at Haarlem excepted. The road itself was 
made more than two centuries and a half ago — about 
thirty years after the settlement of Boston! On the 
right is the wood I have spoken of — the " Scheven- 
ingsche Boschjes," it is called, or park of Scheven- 
ingen, — and it is open to the public and is inter- 
sected with beautiful walks. On the left is the chateau 
of " Zorgvleit," or " Sans Souci," once the residence 
of Father Jakob Catz, whose homespun rhymes are 
so dear to the Dutch heart, and who died there in 
1660. Midway of the road, its creator, Constantyn 
Huygens, is commemorated by a bust. The road runs 
for about a mile through this beautiful wood, and 
then debouches into the brick streets of Scheveningen. 

The modern town of Scheveningen is not interest- 
ing — indeed it seems a little sordid ; it is certainly 
bare and not over clean. It lives only for the mag- 
nificent beach which it faces. Most of the town is 
built behind the dunes, but on top of them and facing 
the ocean is a row of great hotels, reminding one 
of Atlantic City. That is it, in a word : those who 
enjoy Atlantic City will enjoy Scheveningen; those 
who detest the one will detest the other. 

And yet there are some things about Scheveningen 



Trams and Trekschuits 65 

which are unique. One is the hooded chairs, covering 
the beach from end to end like a strange fungous 
growth. Another is the freedom of the love-making, 
even in full day, in the sand of the dunes. Still 
another is the hilarity with which well-dressed men 
and women shed their shoes and stockings, hitch up 
their trousers or skirts, as may be, and run forth 
to paddle in the waves, the skirts getting higher and 
higher as the fun progresses. cy 

The dunes mount steeply to a height of forty or 
fifty feet, and, once on top of them, one must walk 
charily for fear of stepping on a pair of lovers. 
From the top, a wide view may be had over the 
gray sea on one side, and the gray land on the other 
— - a wild and rough country given over to birds and 
rabbits, and with a penitentiary in the middle dis- 
tance. Reed grass, persistently sown, holds the sand 
in some sort of consistency, else every wind from the 
ocean would roll it inland. 

There was much eating and drinking going on, 
and the crowd was perspiring and good-natured, with 
more than the usual sprinkling of soldiers, owing to 
the nearness of The Hague. Most picturesque of all 
were the fisherwomen of the village, with their wide 
skirts, their white caps, their complicated metal orna- 
ments, and their parti-coloured bodices with a kerchief 
folded about the neck. A pretty face loses nothing 
by a white cap, and there were a lot of pretty ones 
on the beach that day. Children, too, swarms of 
them, adventuring into the water with their knobbly 



66 The Spell of Holland 

little naked legs, and shrill screams whenever a roller 
came in. 

The fishermen of Scheveningen catch other fish 
than herring these days; for they were busily en- 
gaged, that Sunday afternoon, in persuading their 
guileless countrymen to go sailing with them on the 
briny deep, at a florin a head. The red-sailed, broad- 
beamed boats, for all the world like the fish-wives 
in appearance, were run in as far as they could come, 
and the prospective voyagers carried out to them on 
the fishermen's shoulders. We expected a sensation 
when a woman prepared to go, but the fishers were 
ready with a board slung from their shoulders, on 
which the lady sat quite comfortably, with her arm 
around her bearer's neck. Happy fisherman! Or 
perhaps not. I did not see the lady's face! 

We watched with interest the process of launching 
one of these boats, when it had got its complement 
of passengers aboard. It was firmly grounded in the 
sand, and it was no small task to get it off again. 
An anchor was carried out to sea a little distance 
and dropped to the bottom, and the rope wound up 
on the windlass. Then a dozen fishermen gathered 
under the bow, and as the boat lifted with a roller, 
they lifted and shoved, and the men at the windlass 
strained and pulled, and perhaps the boat moved an 
inch or two. It took anywhere from ten minutes 
to half an hour to warp it off into deep water. 

When the boats come back from a fishing voyage, 
they are run in on the sand as far as they will go, 



Trams and Trekschuits 67 

and are then hauled out high and dry on the beach 
by means of a team of horses attached to a block 
and tackle. They are, of course, built very strong, 
or they could not stand all this bumping. How many 
there are at Scheveningen I don't know, but there 
were about twenty lined up along the beach that 
day. 

At the edge of the water, tpo, are the bathing- 
machines, which we do not feve here in America, 
perhaps because our bathing costumes are not so scant 
as the European ones. A lady enters the machine — 
which is nothing but a little box on wheels — a horse 
is hitched to it and drags it out a little way into the 
surf, and turns it around, so that the door faces the 
open sea. And presently, you catch a glimpse of a 
female figure as it springs down the steps and plunges 
into the waves. The absence of a skirt certainly 
makes for freedom of movement, and it may be that 
the European way is better than ours. At some of 
the smaller beaches there are no bathing-machines, 
and there a maid waits at the water's edge with a 
voluminous sheet in which to envelop her mistress as 
she emerges. 

Looking down on the beach from the promenade 
high above it, or from the great pier which runs 
out into the sea, it has a most peculiar appearance, 
with the crowd squirming in and out among the 
chairs for all the world like insects, and the chairs 
themselves standing there like huge mollusks, each 
with its occupant. 



68 The Spell of Holland 

But the most interesting part of Scheveningen lies 
a little distance to the south, where the fishing village 
huddles behind the dunes — a village of little old 
brick houses with red roofs, and steep streets over- 
flowing with children. The children are regular 
young cannibals, and as soon as we appeared, surged 
around us, clamouring for " money, money ! " stamp- 
ing on our feet^ith their great wooden shoes, 
and behaving generally in the most outrageous man- 
ner. 

Betty fled at the first onset, but I wanted a picture 
of that old street, and tried to get my camera in 
position. It was impossible with that mob about me, 
and finally, in despair, I flung a few coppers as far 
as I could send them, and took the picture while the 
young savages were fighting over the spoils. The 
fisher- folk of Scheveningen are said to be a proud 
and honest race, but I am inclined to think the report 
exaggerated. I haven't much confidence in the pride 
or honesty of any people whose children are permitted 
to beg. Let me add, that at only two places in 
Holland did we encounter begging children — at 
Scheveningen and at Marken — and both places have 
been corrupted by tourist exploitation. As a whole, 
the Dutch people are proud and honest, and they 
should not be judged by these two debased communi- 
ties. 

We walked along the dyke for a time, and then 
made our way back to The Hague through the 
beautiful wood, and there took tram again for Delft. 



Trams and Trekschuits 69 

Not until I had ridden on a Dutch tram did I 

appreciate to the full those immortal lines by Mark 

Twain : 

Conductor, when you receive a fare, 
Punch in the presence of the passenjare! 
A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, 
A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, 
A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare, 
Punch in the presence of the passenjare! 

Here in America, we pay oifr five cents and ride 
to our destination, whether it be ten blocks or a 
hundred. But in Holland, and, indeed, all over 
Europe, the fares are nicely adjusted to the distance 
you wish to travel. The conductor carries on his 
arm, like a palette spread with colours, a tin-case in 
which the various tickets are arranged — blue slips 
and red slips and buff slips and green slips — all the 
colours of the rainbow, as well as some of which no 
rainbow would be guilty. You state to the conductor 
your destination, he selects the colour to fit your case, 
punches it, and points out to you the fare, printed 
legibly across it, which you pay, and the transaction 
is ended; except that it is then the conductor's duty 
to get out a complicated chart or table and make a 
note on it of the sale he has just effected. An in- 
spector boards the car occasionally to look at the 
passengers' tickets and compare them with this table, 
though how he can tell anything by it I have never 
been able to imagine. 

It was in the tram from Delft to The Hague that 
we met our first discourtesy in Holland. The car was 



70 The Spell of Holland 

full, but not crowded, and Betty sat down on one 
side, while I started to sit down on the other, when 
I was astonished to see a man spread out over the 
space and refuse to make room for me. The number 
of persons who may sit on either side of the car is 
regulated by law, and it seems that his side already 
had the stipulated number, though, as many of them 
were children, there was still plenty of room. 

A sort of electric shudder ran through the car at 
his action. The people on the other side moved 
closer together and invited me to sit there, glaring 
at the offender, who stared straight ahead with a 
determined scowl on his countenance. I sat down 
smiling, for it was all very funny, thanking those 
who had made room for me. In some way the con- 
ductor got wind of the matter, and came in and de- 
livered a lecture in emphatic Dutch, waving his arms 
over the head of the guilty man, who tried to look 
unconcernedly out of the window. 

I think most of the people in that car felt that 
the nation had been disgraced. The man next to me 
tried to explain, but his English and my Dutch were 
so limited that we couldn't get together, though I 
think he was trying to tell me that the offender was 
not a Dutchman, but a low and unprincipled German, 
of whom anything might be expected. The conductor 
scowled at the unfortunate victim — for so I began 
to regard him — every time he entered the car, and he 
was visibly glad to hasten away the instant the car 
stopped. 



Trains and Trekschuits 71 



Let me add here that that one example was the 
only bit of discourtesy or apparent unfriendliness 
shown us in Holland. To overbalance it is a long 
record of kindnesses which we shall never forget. 

This visit to Holland has explained the battle of 
Waterloo to me. You will remember that it was not 
until eight o'clock in the evening that Napoleon or- 
dered that last desperate charge of the Old Guard, 
which the allies repulsed and which was followed by 
the rout and slaughter of the French. I had always 
had a vision of those grenadiers sweeping on through 
the darkness, and up the slope where the allies lay 
entrenched, guided only by the flashes of the cannon. 
But I know now that that charge was made in full 
daylight, and that there was still an hour of daylight 
for the pursuit. For in June it does not really grow 
dark here until after nine o'clock. 

The way the daylight lingers is a constant source 
of astonishment to us. We sat for a long time after 
dinner, that evening, watching the busy life of the 
streets, having our coffee served at a little table in 
the cafe that we might see it better. The front of 
the cafe consisted of two great windows which are 
removed in summer, so that one sits in the full air 
at the edge of the sidewalk. Not until nine o'clock 
did the twilight deepen sufficiently to demand lights; 
then the street lamps flashed out, shop windows were 
lit up — and every gleam of light was reflected in the 
quiet canal flowing along the middle of the street. 



72 The Spell of Holland 

The curtains were drawn behind us, to shut out the 
lights of the billiard-room, and we sat there in the 
darkness, with the busy street like an illuminated stage 
before us. 

It is one of the pleasantest features of Dutch cafes 
that they are always divided in this way by heavy 
curtains, so that those who sit at the little tables near 
the street are in darkness, broken only by the glowing 
ends of cigars and cigarettes or the occasional flare of 
a match. It is a warm and neighbourly darkness, alive 
with the murmur of conversation, and one has the 
sensation of sitting at the theatre, with the never- 
ending human drama passing before one's eyes. 



CHAPTER VI 



OUDE DELFT 



I have said that, to appreciate Holland, one must 
go there with Motley in his head. This is true 
especially of Delft, for it was here that William the 
Silent lived during the closing years of his memorable 
struggle with Spain, it was here that death found him, 
and it is here that he lies buried. Not to know that 
story is to miss a supreme emotion when you stand 
at the spot where that tragedy — one of the great 
tragedies of history — was enacted; a spot unchanged 
since that day, with the mark of the assassin's bullet 
still in the wall. 

Nor, I fancy, is the town much changed. The 
broad and placid canals, bordered by lime trees, flow 
through the streets, mirroring the carved and painted 
fagades of the sixteenth century houses; the air is 
tuneful with the chimes from the towers of the stad- 
huis and the Old 'Church and the New ; peace and 
quiet brood over the little city. Its presiding genius 
is Hugo Grotius, " The Wonder of Europe, the sole 
astonishment of the learned world, the splendid work 
of nature surpassing itself, the summit of genius, the 
image of virtue, the ornament raised above mankind/' 

73 



74 The Spell of Holland 

to quote a portion of the epitaph above his tomb in 
the New Church. Modern opinion has placed Grotius 
on a pinnacle considerably less exalted ; but his image 
in bronze, showing him clad in a long doctor's gown, 
stands in the market-place, dreamily contemplating 
the stadhuis. 

He was born here at Delft, and he seems to have 
been one of those horrible things known as infant 
prodigies, for he wrote Latin verses at nine, a Greek 
ode at eleven, and a philosophic treatise at fourteen 

— and was, no doubt, at every age thoroughly in- 
sufferable. Maurice of Nassau seems to have found 
him so, for he sentenced him to life imprisonment in 
the castle of Loevenstein, whence he escaped, as we 
have seen, in a way reminiscent of the immortal 
D'Artagnan's capture of General Monk. Not until 
after his death did his birthplace claim him, build him 
a gorgeous monument and set up his statue in the 
market-place, to gaze for ever at the stadhuis. 

The stadhuis at Delft is worth contemplating — 
though not through all eternity — for it is a pleasing 
renaissance structure, with columned front and dor- 
mered roof and broad square tower. Behind it is the 
inevitable weigh-house, with the usual sculptured re- 
lief of a beam-scale in operation. The stadhuis has 
its scales too, held by the figure of Justice. 

Facing it, across the square, is the Nieuwe Kerk 

— new only by comparison with the Old, for it dates 
from the fourteenth century — a church which, from 
the front, seems all tower. That tower springs to a 



Oude Delft 75 



height of nearly four hundred feet and is visible all 
over southern Holland. 

Within the church lies the dust of William the 
Silent, as well as that of all the other princes of the 
House of Orange down to the present day; but the 
bright fame of their illustrious ancestor shadows their 
names to comparative obscurity. It is only of the 
great William we think as we stand before the mag- 
nificent monument erected by the United Provinces to 
his memory. It is a masterpiece in its way, with the 
Prince in white marble lying upon a black marble 
sarcophagus, with his dog at his feet. 

There were two dogs famous in the Prince's life 

— one, in 1572, when two Spanish assassins crept 
into his master's tent in the camp at Malines, gave 
the alarm and so saved his master's life; and another, 
no less devoted, unable, indeed, to save the Prince 
from the assassin's bullets twelve years later, but 
refusing meat and drink thereafter, preferring to 
starve rather than owe allegiance to a lesser man. I 
am uncertain which dog this is intended to represent 

— perhaps the latter, faithful after death, or perhaps 
an embodiment of the love and fidelity of both; at 
any rate, lending a touch of simplicity and pathos to 
a monument rather too florid for our taste today. 

The character of this devoted patriot, great general, 
and wise ruler reminds me irresistibly of that of our 
own Washington; for surely these two men were 
alike in many things, and one might almost fancy 
that the Father of the United States modelled himself 



76 The Spell of Holland 

consciously upon the Father of the United Nether- 
lands, just as this Republic was modelled upon that. 
When he died, as Motley says, " the little children 
cried in the streets " ; and certainly it is impossible, 
remembering his struggles and tragedies and disap- 
pointments, so patiently endured, to stand here above 
his dust unmoved. 

I have said that the monument is too florid for 
modern taste; and this is a fault of most Dutch monu- 
ments. They possess neither dignity nor simplicity. 
The violent contrast of black and white marble, the 
mass of sculptured detail, the crowds of allegorical 
figures, the lavish ornamentation — all this misses the 
mark by over-shooting it, just as the high-flown 
epitaphs fail to impress because of their hyperbole, 
and end by being ridiculous. 

The Oude Kerk, or Old Church, is not far away, 
and as one approaches it, the eye is caught by the 
tower, so perilously is it out of perpendicular. It 
seems to overhang the canal at its foot, and I should 
imagine the building of great towers on the soggy 
borders of canals a dangerous experiment. The 
church is a huge one, of brick, even to the traceries 
of the windows. The aisles, both of choir and nave, 
have separate gabled roofs, very steep. This means, 
in the first place, that there is no triforium, and, in 
the second place, that the clerestory is very high, 
though the windows are carried down only a portion 
of the way. At the back and front of the church, 
the great buttresses come so near the canals that 



Oude Delft 77 



arched openings have been cut through them to afford 
a passage. The north aisle is considerably wider than 
the south, and contains the lady chapel, as is the case 
at Dort. The interior is bare and white- washed, the 
roof of wood and barrel-vaulted, the nave cluttered 
as usual with carved pulpit and high pews and one 
portion of it cut off by a frame partition to form a 
gallery. 

There are in the church a number of tombs of more 
than usual magnificence. Most interesting is that of 
Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp, lieutenant-admiral of 
Holland, that redoubtable old sea-dog who tied a 
broom to his masthead as indication that he had swept 
the English from the sea. The boast was not an 
empty one, for he was victor in thirty-three engage- 
ments, and died, no doubt as he would have wished 
to do, at the moment of victory in the last and great- 
est — a second Nelson. 

This battle, the defeat of Admiral Monk off Texel, 
in 1653, is depicted in bas-relief on the side of the 
pedestal. Above, on the rudder of a ship, lies the 
figure of the hero, in full armour, and against the wall 
is a marble slab with the usual fulsome epitaph. 
When one enters the church, one receives a little 
pamphlet entitled " Description of the Principal Tombs 
in the Old Church at Delft "; a description written 
by Dr. G. Morre, and done into English by one D. 
Goslings, whose command of the language appears 
to be more theoretical than idiomatic. His transla- 
tion of Tromp's epitaph is worth appending here: 



78 The Spell of Holland 

FOR AN ETERNAL MEMORIAL. 

You, who love the Dutch, virtue and true labour, read and 
mourn. 

The ornament of the Dutch people, the formidable in battle, 
lies low, he who never lay down in his life and taught by his 
example, that a commander should die standing, he, the love 
of his fellow citizens, the terror of his enemies, the wonder 
of the ocean. 

MAARTEN HARPERTSZOON TROMP, a name compre- 
hending more praise than this stone can contain, a stone truly 
too narrow for him, for whom East and West were a school, 
the sea the occasion of triumph, the whole world the scene of 
his glory, he, a sertain ruin to pirates, the successful protector 
of commerce ; useful through his familiarity, not low ; after 
having ruled the sailors and the soldiers, a rough sort of peo- 
ple, in a fatherly and efficaciously benignant manner; after 
fifty battles in which he was commander or in which he played 
a great part ; after incredible victories, after the highest honours 
though below his merits, he at last in the war against the 
English, nearly victor but certainly not beaten, on the 10th 
of August 1653 of the Christian era, at the age of fifty sex 
years, has ceased to live and to conquer. 

The fathers of the United Netherlands have erected this 
memorial in honour of this highly meritorious hero. 

I should like to add D. Goslings' description of 
the monument, but it is too long, for no detail — 
and there are a thousand of them — escapes his 
notice. Such a riot of carved cherubs, coat s-of -arms, 
ships, helmets, cannon, battle-axes, shields, anchors, 
tritons and dolphins was never seen outside of Hol- 
land, and the designer of the monument outdid him- 
self by using red marble as well as black and white. 
D. Goslings announces proudly that the carving 
cost ten thousand florins — so may good money be 
wasted ! 



Oude Delft 79 



Scarcely less flamboyant is the tomb near by of 
Pieter Pieterszoon Hein, another naval hero, " prin- 
cipally renouned," as D. Goslings says, " for his 
taking the so-called Spanish silverfleet." Here the 
sculptor has placed the armoured figure of the admiral 
on a " beautifully carved mattress," not one crease 
or button of which is left to the imagination. His 
epitaph is even longer than Tromp's. It declares that 
he " surmounted unsurmountabje obstacles," and tells 
the story of his life with a detail I have met with 
nowhere else in stone — told, it would seem, regard- 
less of expense! 

Anthony Van Leeuwenhoek, the inventor of the 
microscope, is also buried here under a monument 
erected by his daughter, Maria. The epitaph is by 
" the Dutch poet, Huibert Corneliszoon Poot, who is 
to be compared with the celebrated Scotch poet, R. 
Burns," and concludes with these words : " As every 
body, o wanderer, has respect for old age and won- 
derful parts, tread this spot with respect : here gray 
science lies buried in Leeuwenhoek." 

There are other tombs in the church, notably that 
of Elizabeth Van Marnix, whose epitaph declares 
" There is virtue enough in having pleased one hus- 
band." The only inference I can draw from this is 
that, had she survived him, she would have remained 
a widow. 

And now let us leave the church and cross the 
little canal to the spot where William of Orange 
breathed his last. 



80 The Spell of Holland 

The Prinsenhof, as the building is still called, was 
originally a monastery, but in 1575 was fitted up as 
a residence for the Prince of Orange, and was his 
home until his death, nine years later. A wall divides 
the courtyard from the street. Crossing this court- 
yard, and entering the door in the building opposite, we 
are on the spot of the tragedy. The murderer was a 
fanatical Catholic, named Baltasar Gerard, who, from 
his youth, had nursed the idea of killing the Prince, 
and whose chance finally came when, by fraud, he suc- 
ceeded in gaining admittance to the house. Conceal- 
ing himself in a dark recess in the vestibule, he waited 
until the Prince, coming from dinner, started to mount 
the stair to the upper story, and then, stepping to 
within a foot or two of him, he discharged a pistol 
full at his heart. Three balls entered his body, one 
of which passed clear through him and struck the 
opposite wall. He died almost instantly. Gerard, 
seeking to escape, was seized and put to death with 
awful tortures. 

The scene has not changed since that day. The 
mark of that fatal bullet is still on the wall; there 
is the dark recess in which the assassin hid; there is 
the old stair. 

The dining-room from which the Prince emerged 
has been converted into a museum containing objects 
connected with his life, and is presided over by a 
most courteous custodian. But, after having been so 
near the mighty patriot as one seems to be at the foot 
of the old staircase, mere documents and portraits 



Oude Delft 81 



and signatures have little interest. More interesting 
it was to us to reflect, as we walked the streets of 
Delft, that Father William once strolled along these 
pavements, hat in hand, conversing with workman 
and with farmer, listening to their grievances, adjust- 
ing their disputes, assisting at their marriages and 
christenings, loved and revered — as his memory is 
to-day. 

The map of Delft reminds %he of a gridiron, so 
regularly is the town laid out, with a canal along 
every street, and a broader canal running around it 
like a moat. No doubt it was a moat, at one time, 
and some of the gates are left that guarded it. Most 
interesting is the Oostpoort, or East-gate, its round 
towers reflected in the canal at its feet, and the dis- 
tant spire of the New Church enclosed by its arch 
as by a frame. 

A quiet and clean town it is, though fallen from 
its ancient splendour, for the manufacture of that old 
faience, which made Delft celebrated throughout the 
world, is a lost art, and its modern imitation is not 
to be compared with it. The City of Phoebus it 
was — Delphi Batavorium, or the Delphi of Batavia, 
as a line upon Tromp's monument points out; now 
but a sleepy Dutch village. The town has been 
immortalized by one of her sons in one of the most 
beautiful canvases ever painted — that " View of 
Delft," from the brush of Jan Vermeer, which hangs 
in the Mauritshuis at The Hague, with the Oostpoort 
in the foreground, and the tower of the New Church 



82 The Spell of Holland 

^ — ^ ■ i 

springing upward in the distance — a canvas before 
which one stands entranced, so natural is it, so quiet 
and so truthful. 

This consummate artist, perhaps the greatest 
painter of genre who ever lived, was born at Delft 
in 1632 and died there at the age of forty-three. 
Little more is known of him, and for a century and 
a half his very name was forgotten, his pictures being 
attributed to various other artists. Then a French 
connoisseur, attracted by the beauty of these pictures, 
set on foot an investigation which brought Vermeer 
the fame so justly his. One need not go to Holland 
to see an example of his delicate art, for the Metro- 
politan Museum of New York possesses a superb 
example. But in Holland one sees the others, — all 
too few ! — and each remains in the memory like an 
unrivalled jewel — the tender " Head of a Girl " at 
The Hague gallery, so charming and so exquisite; 
the " Keukenmeid " at the Rijks, one of the most de- 
lightfully natural pictures ever painted; and so on 
through the list. Though he painted for twenty-five 
years, less than forty of his pictures are known to 
exist. The fate of the others is one of the great 
mysteries of the artistic world. 

I have spoken of Vermeer here not only because 
he was born at Delft, and spent his whole life there, 
but also because he stands apart from other Dutch 
artists, and many things which may be said of them 
would not be true of him. His art, indeed, is not 
Dutch — it is cosmopolitan; it is at home anywhere 



Oude Delft 83 



in the world. Not for him were the great corpora- 
tion pieces, nor the rude scenes of inn and kermess. 
He had a soul too fine and a touch too delicate for 
such uses; and, if the others reach his height occa- 
sionally, it is worth remembering that he never de- 
scends to their depths. 

It was at Delft I bought my Dutch dictionary, a 
tiny vest-pocket affair costing a florin, and worth its 
weight in gold. We had ldng since realized the 
necessity of knowing some Dutch if we were going 
to stay in out-of-the-way places, and we had discov- 
ered the uselessness of a phrase book, which never 
says what one wants to say. So I hit on the idea of 
a dictionary and in a book-shop at Delft found this 
one, small enough to carry in the vest-pocket, and 
yet with two alphabets, one Dutch-English and one 
English-Dutch. After that I was never without it. 
It did not, of course, enable us to converse in Dutch, 
but we could always find the key- word of any sen- 
tence, and the key-word was usually sufficient. 

Even in the small towns, however, English is spoken 
quite generally, especially by the young people, for 
it is regularly taught in the schools. More than one 
shop-keeper has hastily summoned his daughter, when 
he found we were Americans, to talk to us; and, 
after her first shyness and excitement were over, she 
usually did very well. Besides, it is wonderful how 
much can be accomplished by gestures! 

I spent some time in the bookstore at Delft, for I 
was curious to know what sort of English literature 



84 The Spell of Holland 

was honoured by translation into Dutch. Detective 
stories easily took first place. There was Sherlock 
Holmes, in all his incarnations, and the tales of the 
ingenious Mr. Oppenheim, and others which I have 
forgotten. Art books seem to be great favourites in 
Holland, and the young lady in charge of the store 
was greatly interested in a national book exhibition, 
or " tentoonstelling," to be held shortly at Amsterdam. 

The bookstore was also adorned with flaring posters 
announcing the next lottery, chances for which could 
be purchased there. It is, as I understand it, a na- 
tional affair, conducted under the supervision of the 
government, and the drawing takes place every 
eighteen months. There are 21,000 tickets, costing 
seventy florins each, and the prizes range all the way 
from a hundred thousand florins down. It is, the 
young lady told me, very popular, and all the money 
realized from the sale of tickets is distributed in prizes, 
except enough to pay the actual running expenses. 
The government argues, I suppose, that if its citizens 
are determined to gamble, it will see that they get 
a square deal. 

We fell in love with Delft and made it our head- 
quarters for many days, visiting The Hague from 
there, and even returning from a flight as far as 
Leiden. We loved to wander about the streets; to 
sit of an evening in that darkened cafe, watching the 
street life and listening to the chimes. There are no 
such chimes elsewhere. The Old Church and the 
New Church both have them; tier on tier of bells 



Oude Delft 85 



up in those tall towers; and they are always ringing, 
always prodigal of their melodies — with simple har- 
monies at the quarter hour and the half, and intricate 
carillons at the hour. So high they are, so sweet, 
that they hover over the city like the very Angel of 
Music, and produce in the brain a delight so delicate 
and subtle that I fancy sometimes that that great 
artist of whom I have been speaking drew something 
of his subtlety and delicacy frbtn their inspiration. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE " BLYDE INCOMSTE " AT LEIDEN 



We had been conscious for some days of gorgeous 
placards in windows and upon hoardings announcing 
a celebration of some sort at the famous old univer- 
sity town of Leiden, and when we asked about it we 
were told that it was a student festival, and that 
Tuesday the 21st of June would be the best day to 
see it. So, with visions of student- foolishness and 
horse-play in our minds' eye, we decided to go. 
Never were two unsuspecting mortals more agreeably 
surprised. 

We might have known better, as I pointed out to 
Betty afterwards, for Leiden is no ordinary univer- 
sity. You have all heard the story — how, in 1574, 
the city was besieged by the Spaniards, defended 
herself desperately, suffered every agony, and was 
relieved only when William the Silent cut the dykes 
away down at Delftshaven and drove his fleet up to 
the city walls; and how when the great Prince asked 
the heroic burghers what reward they would have for 
their bravery, they petitioned for a university; how 
it was founded in 1575, and how its fame soon ex- 
tended to every part of Europe. Evidently, that was 
not the place for horse-play! 

86 



The " Blyde Incomste " at Leiden 87 



We might have known it, too, when we reached 
the station, that morning, and found the platform 
crowded with grave-looking men in top-hats and 
frock-coats, and their wives in creaking silk. The 
crowd filled the train, but when we got to The Hague 
there was another and larger crowd waiting, and we 
witnessed an amusing instance of Dutch deference 
to law. 

I have told of the man in tht tram who refused 
to make room for me because the seat already held 
the number the law prescribed. This was another 
case of the same kind. Our compartment had four 
roomy seats for eight persons, and there were eight 
persons in it, but three of them were children, and 
there was easily room for two more without crowd- 
ing. But when we stopped at The Hague, the Dutch- 
man nearest the door closed it and held it shut, 
despite the entreaties of the men and women on the 
platform. They were willing to stand; they were 
willing to do anything! But he shook his head and 
held fast to the door, and those wonderful people 
did not get angry and seize him by the collar and 
jerk him out and trample on him, as an American 
crowd would have done; they did not even argue 
with him. They just turned away sadly, recognizing 
that he was within his legal rights, and searched for 
a seat somewhere else. 

At Leiden we found the streets and houses elabo- 
rately decorated. All the way up the long street from 
the station were tall standards wound with cedar, 



88 The Spell of Holland 

with a cedar wreath about half way up and an orange 
pennant floating from the top. Here and there a 
great arch crossed the street, with greetings in Dutch. 
Farther along, both sides of the street were bordered 
with festoons of coloured lights, for the evening cele- 
bration. The householders had outdone themselves, 
and every building was gay with bunting and flowers 
and flags and painted coats-of-arms, and many of 
them were outlined with electric lights in preparation 
for the evening. I have never seen handsomer dec- 
orations, and it was evident at once that this was 
no ordinary celebration. 

This was apparent, too, from the crowd in the 
streets, which were fairly jammed with people. It 
seemed as though all Holland had poured into them, 
and every train brought hundreds more, while the 
roads leading into the town were black with vehicles 
of all sorts. There never was such an opportunity 
to study costumes, for the peasant women had put 
on all their adornments, all their petticoats, all their 
jewelry, in honour of the great event. 

We bought on official program to find out what it 
was all about, and deciphered it by means of my little 
vest-pocket dictionary. The great event of the day 
was to be a costumed procession representing the 
" Blyde Incomste," or happy arrival at Amsterdam, 
on May 20, 1642, of Frederick Hendrick, Prince of 
Orange, accompanied by Henrietta Maria, Queen of 
England. Henrietta Maria, it will be remembered, 
was the consort of Charles I., and her visit to Holland 



The " Blyde Incomste V at Leiden 89 

at this time was for the purpose of securing money 
and munitions of war to carry on the contest which 
that ill-fated monarch was waging with the parlia- 
mentary army. She was accompanied by a magnifi- 
cent suite, and was met outside the city by the Prince 
of Orange, the city dignitaries, the foreign ambassa- 
dors, and, of course, an imposing array of soldiers. 
It was the entrance of this cavalcade into the city 
which the procession at Leidervj^as to represent. 

In preparation for it, the householders along the 
line of march had erected stands on the sidewalks, 
and seats in these could be procured for a considera- 
tion. We got two on the Breedstraat, or Broad 
Street, not far from the stadhuis, and sat down to 
await events. We were exceedingly fortunate in our 
host, if the man of whom we bought the seats can 
be called so; for when he found we were from 
America and understood little or no Dutch, he hunted 
up a friend who could speak English, and introduced 
him to us, and asked him to explain things. It was 
then that our eyes were fully opened to our good 
fortune in being in Leiden on this day. 

For this celebration is a great event. It is held 
yearly in one of the university towns — there are 
five in Holland, Utrecht, Leiden, Groningen, Delft 
and Amsterdam — and lasts a week, with various 
elaborate ceremonies, among which is always the 
representation of some event in Dutch history. This 
one at Leiden included, besides the parade, an open 
air pantomime, " Alinora," a masked ball, a water- 



90 The Spell of Holland 

fest, a bal champetre, and concerts and receptions, 
and alumni dinners innumerable. 

The street before us was becoming more and more 
crowded, the stands, most of them taken entire by 
various societies, were rapidly filling up, the banners 
were waving against the bluest of blue skies. Beggars 
and gypsies were everywhere, grinding dilapidated 
street-organs, showing a monkey or perhaps only a 
guinea-pig, singing a song, reciting a poem, leading 
a blind man, displaying a deformity, or perhaps just 
plainly begging without a pretence of offering any- 
thing in return — standing for long minutes with 
hand outstretched and the countenance pulled into an 
expression supposed to be pitiable. One feature 
which provided great laughter was a man who had 
undertaken to keep dancing all day, to the strumming 
of a guitar by another man. What measures were 
taken to insure his carrying out his part of the con- 
tract I do not know, but I suspect he and his comrade 
might have been found in a dark corner of some inn 
drinking beer together as soon as the receipts justified 
it. The repertoire of the hand-organs, and of the 
itinerant musicians, seemed to be confined to two 
selections, one a jumpy little march and the other a 
languorous waltz. The latter was repeated so often 
that I fancied it must possess some especial impor- 
tance, so I asked what it was. 

" Te Tollar Preencess," answered our host. 

I shook my head. 

"What is it in English?" I asked. 



The " Blyde Incomste " at Leiden 91 

He called his friend the interpreter, and explained. 

" But," said the latter, " dat iss English — te 
Tollar Preencess. ,, 

"Oh," I cried. "Yes — the Dollar Princess !" 

It was the waltz from that comic opera which had 
just reached Holland, and, apparently, quite con- 
quered it. 

" Will you and your lady not have some refresh- 
ments?" continued the interpreter. 

"Refreshments?" I repeated. 

" Certainly," and he motioned to our host, who, 
fairly beaming, led us along a hallway and to a little 
gravelled court at the rear of the house where a table 
was spread with mineral waters of various kinds, 
strawberries, sandwiches, cheese, little cakes, and 
many other things which I have forgotten. Here he 
introduced us to his wife, and insisted that we sit 
and eat. Would we have tea or coffee? Was there 
anything else we would like? And both of them, 
together with a white-capped maid, bustled about, 
very much excited and apparently very happy. 

We found out afterwards that refreshments were 
included in the price of the seats; but even if they 
had not been, I believe they would have been pro- 
duced by these hospitable and simple-hearted people, 
so kind and so characteristically Dutch. I have never 
seen any other people so pleased to give other people 
pleasure. Christmas, with its giving of presents and 
its joyful surprises/ must be a great event with them. 
Indeed, Dutch pictures prove it so. 



92 The Spell of Holland 

But a blare of trumpets announced the approach of 
the procession, and we hastened back to our seats. 
In a moment, the vanguard came in sight under an 
arch at the end of the street, and a beautiful pan- 
orama unrolled before us. For here was no hastily- 
prepared spectacle, with tawdry costumes, but a 
carefully-ordered pageant, historically correct, with 
costumes in replica of the real ones — with real point- 
lace, and sumptuous silks and velvets, and the most 
magnificent plumes I ever saw on a hat. What those 
costumes cost I hesitate to guess; but they gave a 
glimpse of the wealth and solidity of this splendid 
little nation. 

The pageant was a replica of the actual one which 
had occurred two hundred and fifty years before, 
down to the minutest detail. First came the trum- 
peters and various minor Dutch dignitaries and their 
attendants on horseback; then William Frederick, 
Count of Nassau, and his court; then a throng of 
military officers ; then Henrietta Maria and her court, 
the ladies in magnificent state coaches, drawn by six 
or eight horses, with outriders, postilions and all the 
rest of it, and looking very beautiful in their powder 
and patches — the Duchess of Bristol, the Duchess 
of Lenox and Richmond, the Countess of Hanau; 
then the various ladies attached to the Dutch court, 
the Baroness of Brederode, the Princess de Portuhal, 
the Queen of Bohemia and her daughters, together 
with the guards of honour; then the officials of 
Amsterdam, the burgomeester and his councillors; 



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The " Blyde Incomste " at Leiden 93 

then Frederick Hendrick, of Nassau, in beautiful 
damascened armour, with the gentlemen of his court, 
and his captains, and the various ambassadors resi- 
dent in Holland, each outvying the other in magnifi- 
cence; and finally a throng of soldiers on foot and 
nobles on horseback impossible to enumerate here. 

I had always fancied the Dutch rather a stolid 
people, but certainly there was nothing stolid in their 
behaviour that day. The cavaHers were showered 
with flowers and confetti, great wreaths were handed 
up to them; each new costume was greeted with 
applause and exclamations of delight, and the plumed 
hats were sweeping the horses' necks continually in 
response. All along the route, the people at the win- 
dows had supplied themselves with flowers; and we 
were especially amused at the excitement of some 
young ladies in the windows across from us. Their 
supply, albeit generous enough, was soon exhausted, 
and they attacked a double row of gorgeous gera- 
niums growing in a long box which extended right 
across the building. By the time the procession had 
passed, not one bloom remained! 

During the intermission, Betty and I started out 
to see something of the town. To Americans, of 
course, it is especially interesting as the place where 
the " Pilgrim Fathers " found a refuge for the ten 
years which followed their exile from England. I 
suppose most of us, in our youth, have repeated Mr. 
Rankin's ingenuous verses, beginning, 



94 The Spell of Holland 

" The word of God to Leiden came, 
Dutch town by Zuyder Zee. 
Rise up, my children of no name, 
My kings and priests to be." 

Leiden is a good many miles from the Zuyder Zee, 
and Zee rhymes with " bay " and not with "be," but 
I suppose these discrepancies must be forgiven the 
exigencies of the verse. 

Not many mementoes of the Pilgrims remain. On 
the Kloksteeg, under the shadow of the great church 
of St. Peter, is the site of the house in which John 
Robinson "lived, taught, and died, 1611-1625," as 
the tablet on the wall of the present house, of later 
date, puts it. He was buried in the church opposite 
and a tablet to his memory has been placed on its 
wall by the National Council of the Congregational 
Churches of America. 

Leiden has the usual attractions of a Dutch town 
— a handsome sixteenth century stadhuis, two im- 
mense churches, and three or four museums; but she 
has no pictures worth seeing, despite the fact that 
many of the greatest of Dutch painters were born 
here, among them Rembrandt, Jan Steen, Gerard 
Dou, Jan Van Goyen, William Van Mieris, and 
Gabriel Metsu — which is the more peculiar since 
most of them painted here for many years. 

Rembrandt was born in a house near the Witte- 
poort, on the bank of the Rhine, where his father 
had a mill, but mill and house have long since disap- 
peared; Jan Steen tried to manage his father's brew- 



The " Blyde Incomste " at Leiden 95 

ery, failed at that and opened a tavern at the Lang 
Brug, but brewery and tavern are no more. Indeed, 
the position of Steen's grave in St. Peter's church, 
where he was buried, is not even known. Gerard 
Dou lived here at Leiden all his life, but nobody can 
tell where his studio was, and his grave seems to be 
as unknown as Jan Steen's. Such is the irony of time, 
and the forgetfulness of man. What a joy it would 
be to wander through that old miJI where Rembrandt 
spent his boyhood, or to sit in that smoke-stained 
tavern where Jan Steen and his comrades spent so 
many merry nights! That would be worth all the 
rest of Leiden, — with its museums of natural his- 
tory, and ethnography, and Greek and Roman an- 
tiquities, and geology, — and I know not what be- 
sides ! 

It has, however, still existent, one unique and un- 
spoiled relic of the past in the St. Anna Hofje, or 
home for old women. You reach it from the street 
through a sculptured gateway and along a narrow 
passage, and instantly you are back in the fifteenth 
century ; for this courtyard, and the bright little 
houses surrounding it, are almost exactly as they were 
when the place was built — and that was the same 
year that Columbus set sail from Palos! The whole 
history of this western hemisphere has occurred since 
then ; the world has been shaken by tumult and revolu- 
tion, governments have arisen and disappeared, but 
life in this little square of earth has gone placidly on. 
The only change has been in the occupants of the 



96 The Spell of Holland 

houses, new ones succeeding as the old ones were 
borne away to their last resting-place. 

The houses are all more or less awry, but as clean 
as can be; and each of the nice old women spend- 
ing their last years there has a room to herself, with 
a white little wall-bed, a cupboard containing a change 
of clothing, a chair to sit on and a Bible to read. 
There is a refectory, where each inmate has her plate 
and cup and knife and fork and spoon, and a kitchen 
with a shining range and two of the old women in 
white caps peeling potatoes. The chapel is just as 
it was when it was first built, the quaintest little build- 
ing, not over fifteen feet square, with a tiny chamber 
above for the use of the priest, furnished just as it 
was when the last priest who officiated here, in the 
years before the revolution, left it never to return. 
I shall speak of hofjes hereafter, when we come to 
that symposium of hofjes, Haarlem, but no one 
should miss seeing this one at Leiden. 

We loitered about the streets for a time, after our 
stop at the hofje, watching the crowd, looking at 
the decorations, and finally stopping at a bright little 
restaurant facing the Rhine for dinner. The Rhine, 
a mere ghost of its old self, flows right through the 
centre of Leiden, two branches known as the " Old 
Rhine " and the " New Rhine " uniting in the middle 
of the town into a single stream which wanders 
placidly on toward the sea, while the Singel seems 
to flow all around the town without getting anywhere 
in particular. But Dutch rivers have such a fashion 



The " Blyde Inpomste " at Leiden 97 

of starting from nowhere and ending in nothing, that 
I have long since ceased to wonder at their eccen- 
tricities. 

The little restaurant was crowded and the waiters 
so excited by the unusual patronage that we had some 
difficulty in making ourselves understood, even with 
the aid of our dictionary; but a good-natured student 
at an adjoining table volunteered his assistance, and 
we fared very well. There was^im orchestra playing 
in the garden, and, while we sat there, a portion of 
the procession marched past, looking dusty and weary 
and hungry. 

When we got back to the streets, we found that 
most of the other people had been having their din- 
ners, too, evidently washed down with copious 
draughts of beer or wine, or perhaps enlivened with 
the insidious Schiedam. At any rate, the Spirit of 
the Kermess was abroad. Little booths had sprung 
up along the street, where eels and wafelen and 
poffertjes were cooking and being devoured in appall- 
ing quantities. I had noticed these fried eels for sale 
during the day and had speculated on the correct way 
of eating them. Now I saw how it was done. You 
take the head of the eel in one hand and its tail 
in the other and tear the flesh off the backbone with 
your teeth. Those who were thus engaged seemed 
to find the morsel a delicious one. 

And the poffertjes and wafelen! Wafelen, of 
course, you know; we have our hot-waffle-men going 
about the streets here in America, and the product is 



98 The Spell of Holland 

not greatly different to the Dutch one ; only the Dutch 
waffles are immense. You will see a pair of waffle- 
irons leaning against a chair near the fire-place in 
Jan Steen's diverting picture, " The Oyster Feast," 
in the Mauritshuis at The Hague, and the size is 
not exaggerated. The waffles are very thin and crisp, 
and are served with a dusting of powdered sugar, 
and (as we found out afterwards) are very good 
indeed. 

But the poffertjes are unique, and the process of 
their manufacture most fascinating. There is a great 
pail of batter, and a sheet of iron with little round 
depressions in it over a hot fire, and into these de- 
pressions a woman drops little blobs of the batter 
with incredible rapidity, while another turns them 
over and then spears them out with a fork as soon 
as they are nicely browned, puts a pile of them on 
a plate, sifts some sugar over them and there you 
are. We had some afterwards at Amsterdam, and 
found that they taste much like our own batter-cakes. 

As the dusk deepened, the fun grew more furious, 
and we returned to our seats in the Breedstraat in 
order to watch it without becoming involved. The 
Dutch idea of fun seems to be for a lot of young 
men and women to lock arms and go dancing and 
capering along the street, shouting in chorus. It is 
not edifying to look at, and I don't see how it can 
be edifying to do, but the participants seemed to be 
enjoying themselves hugely. It took one back to the 
pictures by Hals and Jan Steen; and though we saw 



The " Blyde Incomste " at Leiden 99 

no actual love-making, I don't doubt that that fol- 
lowed as a matter of course as the evening advanced. 
This capering through the streets was probably only 
the preliminary canter. 

At last it was dark enough for the evening illu- 
mination, and most elaborate it proved to be. All 
along either side of the street a festoon of coloured 
glasses had been hung, each with a candle in it, and 
groups of men were soon at^work lighting them. 
Then the electric decorations were flashed on, the old 
stadhuis leading the way with an elaborate display. 

For an hour longer, the peasants and servants had 
the streets to themselves, and took every inch of 
them. Then the stands began to fill again, and finally 
the parade of the morning was repeated, except that 
it was rendered still more picturesque by the " fak- 
kellichts," or torches carried by the students. Then 
the streets were given over to the peasantry in 
earnest, while the alumni and their friends attended 
the concert of the Leiden " Muziekkorps," or one of 
the many class reunions. 

For us, the problem was to reach the station, and, 
bidding our hosts the kindest of good-byes, we plunged 
into the street. The crowd was a good-humoured 
one, however, though extremely boisterous, and we 
had no reason to complain, except at the slowness of 
our progress. This was not without its compensa- 
tions, as it gave us time to see some of the decora- 
tions more closely. The canals were especially beau- 
tiful, illumined with rows of Chinese lanterns, and 



100 The Spell of Holland 

many gayly-decorated boats idling along them, — an 
effect almost Venetian. We should have liked to see 
the waterfest, scheduled for an evening later in the 
week, but some wishes must go unsatisfied. So with- 
out misadventure we reached the station, secured 
seats in the crowded train, and in due time arrived 
safely at Delft. 

I cannot close this chapter without relating an 
incident peculiarly pleasant. I have said that the pro- 
prietor of our seats thought it his duty to provide 
refreshments, and this had the effect of making the 
holders of the seats acquainted with one another, par- 
ticularly at the " tea " which was served in the after- 
noon. Near us were seated a lady and her two 
daughters, with whom we fell into converse, for they 
could speak a little English — the youngest daughter, 
indeed, speaking it quite well. As they were leaving, 
they asked us with the shyness of the gently-bred, if 
we would not have lunch with them some day at 
their home at The Hague, and they were so evidently 
nice people, of the sort one loves to know, that we at 
once accepted. 

Neither of us will soon forget that visit. Their 
home was a typical old Dutch mansion on the 
Zeestraat, full of beautiful things, and Mijnheer B., 
the husband and father, a handsome Dutch gentleman 
of the best type, a man of affairs, whose hobby was 
rose-culture. There was a beautiful garden back of 
the house, which was his especial pride and care, and 



The " Blyde Incomste " at Leiden 101 

such roses blooming in it as I have rarely seen. He 
presented Betty with a bouquet of the most beautiful 
— a compliment which she appreciated at its full 
value. It proved a most charming experience for 
both of us, and illustrates better than many pages of 
description could do the characteristic hospitality and 
kindness of the Dutch people. 



CHAPTER VIII 



in "the count's enclosure " 



" The Hague " does not appear on any map of 
Holland, for, to the Dutch, their capital is known as 
'S Gravenhage, which means " The Count's En- 
closure," — certainly a sufficiently curious name for 
a town. But long before there was any city here, 
one of the Counts of Holland built a hunting-lodge 
on the bank of a lake which he called the " Vijver," 
or " Fish-pond," and put a hedge around it to keep 
out the wild beasts. About 1250, Count William II. 
tore down the lodge and built a palace on its site, 
and this was afterwards enlarged and rebuilt and 
added to, until it grew into the present great pile of 
buildings known as the Binnenhof. 

Maurice of Nassau, son of William the Silent, 
chose this as his residence, so it became the capital 
of the country and grew rapidly into a large and 
elegant city. But it has always kept the name taken 
from that first little hunting-lodge, " The Count's 
Enclosure." English tongues, however, halt at 'S 
Gravenhage, and for us it is " The Hague." The 
beautiful lake in the middle of the town is still " The 
Fish-pond." 

The Hague is no more typically Dutch than Wash- 

102 



In " The Count's Enclosure M , 103 

ington is typically American. It is a modern town 
with broad, straight streets, handsome shops, far more 
French than Dutch in appearance; no doubt a most 
delightful place of residence, but too cosmopolitan to 
be of interest to the traveller in search of local colour. 
There are three things at The Hague, however, which 
must be seen — the Mauritshuis Museum, the Mesdag 
Museum, and the Binnenhof. 

There is a famous old inn at The Hague, the 
" Vieux Doelen," looking out upon a pleasant square 
and with the Vijver just around the corner; but, alas, 
it has come to be " patronized by English and Ameri- 
can travellers/' as Baedeker puts it, and advertises the 
fact by displaying the flags of those nations at its 
door, on either side of the Dutch flag. The Dutch col- 
ours are red, white and blue, — a favourite combina- 
tion with republics, — arranged lengthwise of the flag 
in three stripes of equal width, the white in the centre. 

* Doelen " is a favourite name for inns in Holland. 
It means " shooting gallery," and is reminiscent of the 
old days when Dutch gentlemen met regularly for 
target-practice, in order to be ready to defend their 
country, should need arise. Now target-practice be- 
gets thirst and hunger, so refreshments were always 
at hand for the sustenance of the patriots, and those 
who came to shoot remained to eat and drink. The 
country's enemies were subdued, in time, and the need 
for target-practice passed; but, as Partridge remarked, 
hunger and thirst are enemies which always return 
to the charge, no matter how often defeated, and the 



104 The Spell of Holland 

" Doelens " had become the natural places in which 
to assuage them. So the guns and targets were put 
away, more tables secured, the kitchen and cellar en- 
larged, and that which had been a shooting-gallery 
became an inn. We have seen how old names per- 
sist, in Holland — how the country's capital is still 
called " The Count's Enclosure " — so it is not won- 
derful that these places continued to be known as 
" doelens," though the only practice studied there was 
the art of wielding knife and fork and emptying 
bottles. 

The one thing at The Hague on no account to be 
missed is the collection of paintings lodged in the 
handsome residence built in 1633 for Count John 
Maurice of Nassau, and still known as the Mauri ts- 
huis. The collection has had its tribulations, for, 
like most of the others in Europe, it was carried off 
to Paris by Napoleon, and not until after Waterloo 
was it returned to Holland. Even then, Louis XVIII. 
refused to restore it; but the Duke of Wellington, 
remembering, no doubt, how gallantly the Dutch 
troops, with the Prince of Orange at their head, had 
held the centre of his line at Waterloo, insisted that 
the pictures be given up. So the French king yielded, 
the pictures were loaded into ambulance wagons, and 
on November 20, 1815, arrived at The Hague, wel- 
comed by the thunder of cannon and the ringing of 
bells. The collection now numbers some seven hun- 
dred paintings, more than three-fourths of which are 
by Dutch artists. 



In " The Count's Enclosure " 105 

All of the Dutch masters are well represented, the 
most famous picture of the collection being, of course, 
Rembrandt's " School of Anatomy," with the deadest 
of corpses, so wonderfully foreshortened, and the 
group of earnest faces gazing down upon it. But it 
does not impress me as does that other masterpiece 
of his, " The Syndics," at Amsterdam. 

Next to the " Anatomy Lesson " in reputation 
comes Paul Potter's " Bull," before which an admir- 
ing group is usually assembled; but it grievously dis- 
appointed both of us. Indeed, it does not seem to 
me to be a picture at all, but rather a painstaking 
attempt to portray a single animal with photographic 
accuracy. Nobody can deny the life-likeness* of the 
bull; but the rest of the picture is almost slovenly. 
It has no depth, no atmosphere; the landscape is flat 
and hard; the tree and the herdsman and the other 
animals quite uninteresting. Please understand that 
I am no connoisseur, and make no pretence of speak- 
ing with authority 

But for me the two pictures at the Mauritshuis, 
above all others, are Jan Steen's " Oyster Feast," and 
Gerard Dou's " Young Housekeeper." The " Oyster 
Feast " is hung near a window, where it gets a good 
light, and there is a seat in front of it, so that one 
may sit and examine it at leisure. I never weary of 
looking at it, especially at the wonderful figure of 
the girl kneeling before the fire and putting oysters 
on the coals. That figure seems to me the summa- 
tion of drawing and painting. 



106 The Spell of Holland 

"The Young Housekeeper " is also a miracle of 
painting; a tender subject — merely a mother and 
her two children in the kitchen of their home, with 
vegetables and game and fish and kitchen utensils 
piled about — tenderly and charmingly handled ; with 
minute care expended on every inch of it. 

Another interesting picture by Jan Steen shows him- 
self and his family gathered about a table, having a 
good time. Jan, pipe in mouth, laughs full-face out 
of the canvas, just such a plump and jolly fellow 
as one would imagine him to have been. But the 
whole party is jolly, and what a pandemonium of 
noise must fill that apartment! 

I hope you will spend some time before that won- 
derful picture of Delft, by Jan Vermeer, of which I 
have spoken, and whose charm I am quite unable to 
describe or explain. But then there are so many pic- 
tures here worth lingering before; for it is here that 
you will begin to understand and love T)utch art — 
the art of such men as Steen and Dou, of Van Ostade 
and Terbourg and Van de Velde and Metsu, and all 
the rest. I shall not attempt even to enumerate these 
treasures; but there is one other picture I hope you 
will not miss, the masterpiece, perhaps, of Adrian van 
Ostade, " The Fiddler," so full of kindly human in- 
terest that one smiles involuntarily in looking at it. 

The Binnenhof is only a few steps from the Maurits- 
huis. One enters th^ court through a vaulted gate- 
way, and is at once upon the scene of one of the 
great tragedies of Dutch history, the execution of 



In " The Count's Enclosure " 107 

John of Barnevelt, who was beheaded in this court on 
the thirteenth of May, 1619, his last moments watched 
from the window of the tower opposite by Maurice 
of Nassau, whose tutor and prime minister he had 
been, and who repaid his great services to the young 
republic by condemning him to death. 

The old buildings of the Binnenhof completely sur- 
round this court, which has a most mediaeval appear- 
ance. On the east side is the JHall of the Knights, 
now used as a storehouse for state records, while the 
other buildings are occupied by the Dutch parliament. 
They are interesting only as parliament buildings 
usually are. 

In the square outside is the gloomy old tower known 
as the " Gevangenpoort," which has also witnessed 
its tragedies — the most famous being the mur- 
der, in 1672, of Cornelis and Jan de Witt by an in- 
furiated mob, which dragged them from the prison 
into the place outside and tore them limb from limb. 
If you have read " La Tulipe Noire," you will never 
forget the details of that murder, described by Dumas 
with even more than his accustomed vigour, though 
not with entire accuracy. 

The Gevangenpoort is no longer a prison — it is 
a museum; a museum in which one shudders; for 
here in these dark and narrow cells scores of men 
and women were done to death. Here are the rack 
and thumb-screws and barbed boots and branding- 
irons; here are the implements of the water-torture; 
and here, finally, are the axe and block which ended 



108 The Spell of Holland 

the sufferings of such of these unfortunates as were 
not reserved for the stake. 

One is glad to get out again into the sunlight, and 
to turn one's thoughts from all these horrors by enter- 
ing the Steengracht gallery, a little distance away. 
The Steengracht is not of the first importance — 
scarcely, perhaps, of the second — but it has some 
good modern pictures, a masterly Rembrandt, " Bath- 
sheba," and two fine works by Hals. From there 
one may go to the Municipal museum, chiefly notable 
for its paintings by modern Dutch artists; but if 
one's time is limited, little is lost by omitting these 
two collections altogether, and going straight from 
the Gevangenpoort to the house in the Laan van 
Meerdervoort which shelters the extraordinary col- 
lection presented to the state by H. W. Mesdag. 

It seems strange that one must come to Holland 
to study the work of the Barbizon school; yet such 
is the case, and it is here at the Mesdag museum that 
it must be done. For Mesdag, himself for a time 
a member of the Barbizon group, was one of the first 
to appreciate its merits, and his Corots and Millets 
and Daubignys were bought at a time when they 
were more or less of a drug on the market. The 
collection is particularly rich in Corots, and while 
none of them is quite equal to the wonderful ones 
at the Louvre, there is one which is especially beauti- 
ful — a little clearing in a wood, with a long avenue 
of trees stretching away into the distance. 

In the ante-room on the second floor are two studies 



In " The Count's Enclosure " 109 

by D. C. A. Artz which are also very charming — 
interiors dimly lighted and most suggestive. One 
shows a boy on the floor holding a baby, while another 
boy watches an old woman as she lights the kitchen 
fire; the other shows a family of five or six at table, 
and both are full of atmosphere and feeling. 

It was interesting to compare Bastien-Lepage's 
sketch for " The Haymakers " with the finished paint- 
ing, now in the Luxembourg. /The " sketch " is also 
a finished painting, and differs from the other, so 
far as I could see, in only one detail — but that is 
a vital one. If you know the picture, you will re- 
member that its whole point is in the tragedy in the 
face of the woman seated on the ground and staring 
straight before her with eyes which see nothing. In 
the " sketch " there is no such point, for the face is 
that of a thoughtless girl. Was it in the watches of 
the night, I wonder, that the inspiration came which 
transformed a very ordinary composition into a great 
picture ? 

We had the pleasure of meeting M. Mesdag at the 
museum, and he was good enough to take us around 
and tell us something about the pictures, speaking 
English very well, but with a voice the most peculiar, 
in which the fogs and tempests of his own sea-days 
seemed to linger. An imposing and venerable old 
man, verging, I suspect, towards second childhood; 
he is yet one of Holland's best painters of marines. 
There is one of his pictures here, a seaview by moon- 
light, especially beautiful, pervaded by that atmos- 



110 The Spell of Holland 

phere of pearly gray which dominates all his work. 
We saw many of them afterwards, and while I should 
scarcely call them masterpieces, their restful skies and 
stretches of quiet water are certainly very charming. 

There are two other show-places at The Hague 
which I suppose you will wish to visit, the royal 
palace and the Huis ten Bosch, but I am afraid you 
will be disappointed in them, at least in the former. 
As you enter the royal palace and cross the resplendent 
entrance hall, tap one of the imposing marble columns 
with your knuckle. You will find it gives off a hol- 
low sound, for it is not marble, but plaster very clev- 
erly painted. Most of the marble here and through- 
out the palace is imitation — a thing which I cannot 
understand, for I would have supposed that any sensi- 
ble being would rather live surrounded by honest oak, 
for instance, than by this tawdry pretence of grandeur. 

Indeed, the whole palace shows a disconcerting 
lack of taste, for the decorations are garish red and 
white and gold, of the most extravagant rococo, and 
the pictures upon the walls are uninspired representa- 
tions of unimportant occasions in which Dutch roy- 
alty figured, or wooden presentments of the same 
royalty's wooden faces. The palace is not worth a 
visit, except as an example of how not to do it — and, 
perhaps, for a look into the Java room on the ground 
floor. 

The Huis ten Bosch is better worth while; for, in 
the first place, the way to it leads through the charm- 
ing Haagsche Bosch, or Hague wood, a beautiful 



In " The Count's Enclosure " ill 

drive; and, in the second place, the palace itself has 
a number of associations interesting to Americans. 
For it was here that John Lothrop Motley wrote a 
portion of his " Rise of the Dutch Republic," and it 
was here that the first International Peace Conference 
met in 1899. 

The chief attraction of the palace is the orange 
saloon where this conference was held, an octagonal 
hall decorated with highly-coloured paintings relating 
to the achievements of Prince Frederick Henry of 
Orange, whose widow built the palace. Nine paint- 
ers are said to have laboured four years on these pic- 
tures; but that does not make them good. More in- 
teresting is the parquet floor, ingeniously laid in the 
form of a spider-web. Two other rooms in the house, 
the Chinese room and Japanese room, should be vis- 
ited by admirers of Oriental faience and the art which 
delights to spend a lifetime carving a cherry-stone. 
For myself, I do not admire a chandelier simply be- 
cause it is made of cups and saucers, or a table-top 
because it contains a million bits of stone. 

Most of the towns of Holland make a specialty 
of some candy or confection. At The Hague, it is 
the Haagsche Hopjes, a variety of coffee-flavoured 
bon-bon, concerning whose origin the following tale 
is told. In 1778, the Baron Hop was ambassador of 
the Austrian Netherlands residing at The Hague. 
This nobleman became such a devote of coffee that 
the supply available at meal-times did not satisfy his 



112 The Spell of Holland 

craving, and he thereupon invented a coffee-flavoured 
confection to be eaten at odd moments, so that the 
taste of the berry might be always on his palate. 
There were many other devotes of the same sort in 
Holland, so an enterprising firm secured his recipe, 
and put the bon-bon on the market, naming it after 
its inventor. This recipe has never left this firm's 
possession, and, from that day to this, the real 
Haagsche Hopje may be secured only from it. At 
least, that is the tale the firm tells. The confection, 
while good, scarcely merits all this trumpeting, and 
I should imagine it not difficult to reproduce. 

At Delft, the specialty is the " Delftsche Jaap- 
maatjes," also monopolized by a single firm, which 
has manufactured them for over a hundred years. 
We got some. They are put up in tin boxes, and 
are little flat rectangular cakes, tasting very much like 
crisp and well-baked ginger-cakes. At Haarlem there 
are two specialties, halletjes and houtjes, but we did 
not sample them, and I must leave them for some 
other traveller to describe. 

It was most regretfully next morning, that we bade 
the head-waiter at the Hotel Central good-bye and 
turned our backs on Delft. Both Betty and I had 
grown fond of that clean and pretty city, and we 
hope to see it again some day. But we were soon 
rolling away toward Haarlem, with the familiar, quiet, 
lovely Dutch landscape unfolding under our eyes. 

There are two things of interest in Europe; one 



In " The Count's Enclosure " 113 

is Europe, the other is one's fellow-travellers. Europe 
has been described many times; it is there unchang- 
ing, and, more or less, the same for all of us. But 
our fellow-travellers are our own, they answer to our 
reaction, they are never quite like those of anyone 
else. 

There is no better place to study human nature, to 
catch it with the mask off, than in a European railway 
train. This is not at all true^of America, because 
the arrangement of our passenger coaches discourages 
intimacy. We sit with our backs to each other ; there 
is not that coziness nor the provocations to acquaint- 
anceship which the European compartment offers. 
For instance, here in America we don't have to ask 
pardon whenever we get on board a train for stum- 
bling over our fellow-travellers' feet. The necessity 
for so doing whenever one enters a train in Europe 
is usually the opening wedge to conversation, for it 
is always the first words which are most difficult. 

" Beg pardon," I said, that morning, as I entered 
the train at Delft and stumbled over two pairs of 
protuberant feet ; and then proceeded to see that Betty 
had the best seat available facing the engine and that 
our luggage was safely in the rack overhead. 

Then I sat down and glanced at the owners of the 
feet — a man and a woman, middle-aged, weary- 
looking, with lack-lustre eyes. 

" I guess you're from the States, ain't you? " asked 
the man, as he caught my glance. 

"Yes; from Ohio." 



114 The Spell of Holland 

"We're from Chicago. Been over here long?' 

" Not very." 

" We've been travellin' for two years." 

" Two years ! " I echoed, dismayed. 

" Yes," he said, with a smile of triumph, " and 
we're figurin' on two more before we go back home. 
We've done Italy and France — " 

" In Paris we stayed at the Grand Hotel," put in 
the lady, with an air I did not then understand, not 
having, as yet, been to Paris. Afterwards I under- 
stood. 

" Yes," went on her husband, " and in Rome we 
also stayed at the Grand." 

I have never been to Rome, but I presume the 
Roman Grand is a replica of the Paris one. 

" I suppose you enjoyed Italy? " I asked tentatively. 

" Oh, so-so," said the man. " This Europe is a 
pretty run-down place." 

" But one has to see it, you know," added the lady, 
answering the question which was on my lips. 

"Been staying at Delft?" asked the man. 

" Yes," I said; " we've been there nearly a week." 

U Pretty slow, ain't it?" 

" Oh, yes ; it's slow ; but then it's Dutch." 

"Going to The Hague?" 

"No; we've been there." 

" How long did you stay ? " 

"We didn't stay at all," I explained. "We ran 
over from Delft three or four times and looked 
around." 



In " The Count's Enclosure M 115 

" But, my dear sir/' exclaimed the Chicagoan, 
astonished, " you don't call that seeing Holland, do 
you? Why, The Hague's the capital. We expect to 
stay a month — at the Old Doelen — that's the best 
hotel there, I've heard; and then we're going on to 
Scheven — or whatever the name of the place is — 
for another month." 

" At Scheven we'll stay at the Palace," put in his 
wife. / 

• " Yes, that's the name. You see, we're taking our 
time." 

" You're lucky to be able to," I said. 

He glowed at the words, and his wife visibly 
preened herself. 

" Ya-as," he agreed, affecting a yawn. " And we 
stay only at the best hotels. Ever stay at the Grand? " 

"No," I said; "we'll hit Paris later." 

"It's a dream!" he said. "A bit expensive, of 
course," he added deprecatingly. 

As I said, I have since seen the Grand; have, in- 
deed, gone to the extent of taking dinner there. A 
drearier place I cannot imagine — the vestibule full 
of " guides," and nothing but English in the corridors! 
I wonder what the Chicagoan would have thought of 
that dear little inn just around the corner from the 
Louvre where we spent three delightful weeks? Or, 
rather, I do not wonder, for I can see his nose turning 
up as he looks at it. 

I was glad when the train stopped at The Hague, 
and so delivered us from our companions. And I 



116 The Spell of Holland 

heard Betty's sigh of relief as she settled back in her 
corner. 

But they are not all like that. 

One day, a nice-looking young couple wandered in 
— it was a corridor train — looking for seats, and, 
seeing they were Americans, we hastily made room 
for them. They sank down thankfully, and we began 
to talk. They were from Texas and were travelling 
on a Cook's circular ticket, which was made up in a 
book of many coupons. 

" Theh's anotheh one gone," the Texan said, as 
the guard came through and tore one out of the 
book. 

I wondered at his tone. 

"Do you mean you're glad?" I asked. 

"Glad!" he echoed. "Glad ain't strong enough, 
suh! I'll be so almighty delighted when I come to 
the last one I won't know what to do! Why, suh, 
this country is fouh hundred yeahs behind the times. 
Look out theah, now," and he motioned to a field 
where some men were cutting hay with scythes. 
" Wouldn't that make you ill ? Men mowin' like 
that, an' this the twentieth century! Takin' a week 
to do what one of ouh mowehs would do in ten 
minutes! Have you eveh been to Texas,, suh?' 

"No," I admitted; "I never have." 

" It's God's country. Come theah, suh, next time, 
instead of to this old, worn-out antique. Why, suh, 
every time I pay a bill oveh heah I'm ashamed — 
ashamed that I'm throwin' away among these rascals 



In " The Count's Enclosure " 117 

the good money that was made in Texas and ought 
to be spent theah ! " 

He lapsed into gloomy silence, while the two ladies 
compared notes of the trip. Finally he aroused 
himself. 

" Do you smoke, suh? " 

" Yes," I answered, " and the cheapness of good 
cigars here is a wonder." 

" I don't cahe foh cigars." ^ 

"I smoke a pipe myself, at home," I exclaimed; 
" but it seems like flying in the face of providence not 
to consume as many as possible of these cigars." 

"What tobacco do you smoke, suh?" 

I named the plebeian brand to which I have been 
addicted since my college days. 

" So do I," he said, waking to sudden life, " and 
I ain't had any foh a month an' three days. I can't 
find any oveh heah — I can't find any that I can 
smoke. My tongue's hangin' out ! " 

I made a dive for my bag, and fished out my 
tobacco pouch. 

" Here," I said, pressing it upon him; " fill up." 

I shall never forget the gleam in his eye as he 
got out his cigarette paper — for he smoked it in that 
form. Then he hesitated. 

" We can go out in the corridor," I said, and we 
spent a happy half hour there together, while he told 
me how he was going to make a fortune out of pecan 
trees. 

I have never regretted that benefaction; though 



118 The Spell of Holland 

- 

my supply of the precious mixture ran out one day in 
Germany, and I burnt the skin off my tongue and 
nearly killed myself trying to smoke the native brands. 
But that story is too tragic to tell in the pages of 
a book like this! 



CHAPTER IX 

ON THE ROAD TO SLOTERDIJK 

We found a bright little inn at Haarlem, where 
even the head-waiter's knowledge of English was of 
the slightest; but we were growing independent of 
head-waiters and all other intermediaries between us 
and the Dutch language. Constant use of our little 
dictionary was giving us a vocabulary, besides which 
there were always the street signs as a source of 
education. A very good education may be had from 
street signs — as in the case of Sam Weller, who was 
brought up on them! 

And here let me correct any possible misconception 
concerning these small inns of Holland. They are 
not, of course, as elaborate as the big hotels which 
are built to cater to tourists — there is no orchestra 
in the dining-room (God be thanked!) ; but they are 
scrupulously, spotlessly clean, and in them you are 
treated like a fellow-human and not like a victim. 
Sanitary science has not, perhaps, made the advances 
in Holland that it has with us; but every inn we 
stayed at, and there were a lot of them, had a bath- 
room and the ordinary toilet conveniences. 

I have said that they were clean; but they were 
more than that. The mania for scrubbing is just 

119 



120 The Spell of Holland 

as great in these inns as in private houses, and more 
than once have we returned to our room in the middle 
of the day to find it turned upside-down and inside- 
out for the semi-weekly cleaning. The bed-linen was 
always immaculate, the beds most comfortable, and 
the attendants in a tremble of agitation in their eager- 
ness to be of service. And this eagerness was not 
from hope of a tip, but from desire to make the guest 
comfortable. 

To be sure, the bath-rooms were sometimes primi- 
tive; but water is always water, however it is got 
into the tub; and, lacking a sense of humour and a 
disposition to make the best of things, no man can 
be a really successful traveller. At Delft, one even- 
ing, I asked for a hot bath, and, ten minutes later, 
made my way to the bath-room, where I found a maid 
and a waiter staring with starting eyes at the heater. 
I fancy that neither of them had had much occasion 
to use that heater; at any rate, they had allowed 
the gas to accumulate beneath it before touching the 
match, with the result that it went off with a bang 
and a blaze that frightened them nearly out of their 
wits. They had hastily turned the gas off, and were 
afraid to turn it on again. When we finally got it 
started nicely, and the hot water pouring from the 
faucet, you never saw two more delighted people. 
They confided to me afterwards that, rather than run 
any further risk with the heater, they had decided 
to carry up the water from the kitchen. 

Nor shall I soon forget the bath-room of the inn 



On the Road to Sloterdijk 121 

at Kampen, where the preparing of a bath was a 
matter of such high moment that it could be entrusted 
only to the proprietor himself, and where the bath- 
tub was almost big enough to swim in ! 

So do not imagine that there is any loss of com- 
fort by going to these modest inns. Indeed, there 
is often a gain in comfort; and a very great gain 
in studying Dutch characteristics and in meeting Dutch 
people. After all, one goes to a country to see the 
people and to observe their customs, and one cer- 
tainly does neither at the hotels " patronized by Eng- 
lish and Americans/' where even the waiters are 
French! To say nothing of the fact that you never 
eat a typical Dutch meal at any of them. But I shall 
tell about Dutch meals by and by. 

Haarlem is also a town where you will need your 
Motley, for, like Leiden, it suffered siege by the 
Spaniards; but, unlike Leiden, William of Orange 
was unable to succour it and, with its citizens starving 
in the streets, it was finally forced to yield to Alva's 
son after a resistance the most heroic. Warned by 
the fate of other towns which had fallen before that 
fierce soldiery, the burghers prepared for a desperate 
sortie, to cut their way through the Spanish lines, with 
their women and children in their midst. But Don 
Frederic promised them their lives, if they would sur- 
render; and at once proceeded to slaughter them, as 
soon as the town was his. The women and children 
found refuge in the Groote Kerk; but the clergy, the 



122 The Spell of Holland 

entire garrison and more than two thousand of the 
townspeople were tortured and butchered in the 
streets. Gardens and promenades now occupy the 
site of the ancient ramparts, but many of the old 
houses still look down upon the clean and quiet 
thoroughfares, and the huge mass of the old church 
still dominates the town. When I say that the streets 
are quiet, I must except one of them, and that is 
the one which runs from the station up through the 
town to the market-place and then on out to Haarlem 
wood. This street is anything but quiet, because a 
horse-drawn tram runs along it, and on each tram- 
car there is a bell, and that bell is clanged incessantly 
by the driver. " Old Clangey " we got to calling him, 
and he certainly deserved the name. 

I don't know why it is, but if there is a bell within 
a tram-driver's reach, he can't keep his hand away 
from it. At Dort it was the same. There may be 
nobody in the street for a block ahead, but the bell 
is still kept clanging. In thinking over the problem, 
I have come to the conclusion that the bell is used 
as an advertisement and not as a warning. Whatever 
its purpose, it is in one's ears day and night. 

The environs of Haarlem are as interesting as the 
town itself, and we spent the first day among them. 
An electric tram runs to Amsterdam along an em- 
bankment, with great polders stretching away on 
either side. To the south is what was once the sea 
of Haarlem, seventy-two square miles in extent, a 



On the Road to Sloterdijk 123 

stormy and treacherous body of water, which threat- 
ened even Amsterdam itself. It witnessed a savage 
sea-fight between the Dutch and Spanish; but, after 
the Spanish were driven from the country, the sea 
remained, an enemy even more dangerous. It was 
too big to be drained by windmills, but finally the 
invention of the steam-pump solved the problem, and 
it was pumped dry. To look at those broad and 
fertile fields, with their farmsteads and canals and 
rows of trees and men in blue trousers making hay, 
and windmills with their great sails apparently walk- 
ing across the country, one would never suspect that, 
seventy years ago, all this was the bottom of a lake. 

To the north was the broad morass of the river 
Ij — we put the two letters together and call it the 
Y — a stream subject to floods and at all times dan- 
gerous and uncertain. Strong lock-gates were con- 
structed at Halfweg to hold this water back, but it 
was always a menace to the great polder, so the Ij 
was diverted, the morass drained, and now the only 
considerable body of water in sight from the tram 
is the wide and placid canal which follows the embank- 
ment, and gives direct water-connection between 
Amsterdam and Haarlem. If you look at this land- 
scape understandingly, you will realize that it is no 
empty boast when the Dutch claim to have made 
the very land they live on. 

The little village of Halfweg is, as its name indi- 
cates, halfway between Haarlem and Amsterdam, and 
we left the tram there for a walk through this beauti- 



124 The Spell of Holland 

ful country, striking off to the south across the Haar- 
lemmer polder, along a tree-bordered road, past red- 
roofed farm houses, with outbuildings clustered about 
them, and great ricks of hay overtopping even the 
barns; each cluster of buildings nestling in a grove 
of trees and surrounded by a narrow canal as by a 
moat, with a bridge leading out to the road in front 
and another to the fields in the rear. Rows of crocks 
and pans and other utensils of dairying were drying 
and sweetening in the sun, and we could catch 
glimpses of the women, their skirts tucked up, hurry- 
ing about with pails and brushes, intent on their never- 
ending cleaning. It is difficult to imagine anything 
more cozy and homelike than these little farmsteads, 
and, though life there is doubtless hard enough, their 
occupants seem happy and contented. And the softer 
things of life are not lacking either, for every house 
had its little flower garden, gay with roses and gera- 
niums. 

The day was a perfect one, soft and warm, with 
the bluest of blue skies tempered here and there by 
the fleeciest of clouds — the typical Dutch sky of 
Ruisdael and Hobbema. To take advantage of this 
splendid weather, the hay-makers were out in force, 
turning the green hay over and over with long forks, 
or loading the cured hay upon high-beamed wagons 
to be carried away to the ricks, which grew every 
hour higher and higher. The ricks are simple affairs 
— four tall and massive poles upon which a thatched 
roof slides up and down, The roofs are carried to 



On the Road to Sloterdijk 125 

a sharp point at the centre, and when the rick is full 
and the roof at its topmost notch, the whole affair 
looks startlingly like a Chinese pagoda. 

The fields are separated from each other by ditches 
full of water, so that the wagons had to be driven 
around to the bridge; but the labourers hopped 
across wherever they wanted to by means of little 
poles. Many swans, both white and black, with little 
gray woolly broods, were swimming about in the 
water and bringing up samples of the bottom. It 
rather goes against our ideas to use for food a fowl 
so decorative; but swans are so used in Holland 
pretty generally, and have been from time immemorial, 
as the Dutch pictures prove. Few of the old pictures 
of dead game — and there are hundreds of them upon 
the walls of the galleries of the Netherlands — but 
show a great white swan among the pigeons and par- 
tridges and hares. 

One would think these canals too small to harbour 
fish, and yet there were many fishermen sitting along 
them; and we saw one, a boy, with a rod about a 
yard long, catch five or six diminutive silver-scaled 
fish, something like those which in my own youth 
we used to call " lamp-lighters." The borders of 
these little canals make famous grounds for wild- 
flowers, and were bright that day with delicate va- 
nilla, and turquoise-blue forget-me-nots, and scarlet 
poppies, and ox-eyed daisies, while the ditches them- 
selves were gorgeous with yellow flags and white and 
yellow water-lilies. These water-lilies, the most 



126 The Spell of Holland 

beautiful imaginable, fill the ditches and edge the 
canals all over Holland, but the Dutch do not seem 
to care for them, and only once, at Gouda, did we 
see any offered for sale. All through Holland the 
fields are spangled with buttercups and daisies, just 
as they are in England. 

It is an old joke that the Dutch have rescued their 
land from the water, only to consign it to the flames, 
because the principal fuel of the country is peat, and 
wherever the peat is dug out the water rushes in. 
Some of it is dredged up from the bottom of the 
canals, so that two birds are killed with one stone, 
and we had seen piles of this drying along the bank. 
We were now to witness the more destructive process. 

About a mile beyond Halfweg, we came to the 
great peat-fields which were once the bottom of the 
Haarlemmer Meer, and, ages before that, a swamp 
covered with the rank growth which time has turned 
into peat. Two men were busily engaged in cutting 
it, using for the purpose a sharp spade-like imple- 
ment, and never pausing in their labour ; and all along 
the field nearest the road, great piles of the peat 
bricks were stacked up to dry. Wherever this had 
been cut, the water had poured in, and, instead of 
broad fields divided by narrow canals, the country 
had been converted into wide sheets of water divided 
by narrow strips of land. When one considers that 
this is going on pretty much all over Holland, the 
problem which the country faces would seem to be 
a serious one. I suppose, in the end, the government 




CUTTING PEAT ON THE HAARLEMMER POLDER. 




PEAT DRYING FOR MARKET. 



On the Road to Sloterdijk 127 

will have to put a stop to peat-digging, except upon 
the higher ground to the east, and compel the inhabit- 
ants to use the more expensive coal, mostly brought 
in from Belgium. 

That will mean a great readjustment, for now the 
peat traffic is an important feature of Dutch life. 
The canals are filled with barges carrying it to mar- 
ket, or returning to the peat-fields laden with sweep- 
ings and debris to dump into th£ holes from which 
the peat has been taken; and the streets of the towns 
are busy with little carts peddling the brown bricks 
from door to door, so that the peat business gives 
employment to a large number of persons. It seems 
a convenient fuel, as well as a cheap one, and we 
grew to like its pungent odour. Yes — and if there 
is no more peat, what will become of those little foot- 
warmers which have been used in every Dutch house 
for hundreds of years, and which I have already 
described ? 

We lingered for quite a while watching the peat- 
cutters at work, and then went leisurely onward, 
through a tiny village of not more than a dozen houses, 
along a road shaded by trees of more than usual 
beauty, and then back along a cross-road toward the 
tram-line. We stopped for a time to admire a friendly 
drove of little black-and-white calves, who obligingly 
posed for their portraits, — and it wasn't their fault 
that I didn't get a good one ! — and then, at the en- 
trance to a quaint old house, we made an acquaintance. 

It was a peddler driving a cart to which three dogs 



128 The Spell of Holland 

were harnessed. A collection of brushes of all shapes 
and sizes dangled from a high framework running 
lengthwise of the cart, and its bed was also heaped 
with brushes, while from the sides hung many pairs 
of wooden shoes. The demand for both commodi- 
ties must be very heavy in Holland! 

I was preparing to take a picture of the outfit, which 
was certainly most picturesque, when the proprietor 
himself hurried out of the house and posed himself 
in the background, plainly delighted to do so. I 
snapped the picture, and put my hand in my pocket 
to extract a few pennies, but he sprang forward, 
shaking his head. 

" Neen, neen ! ,: he cried, and swept the wooden 
shoes away from the front of his cart, and pointed 
to the name there : 

C. BARKER, 

Sloterdijk. 

Then he pointed to himself and to the camera. 

I understood, of course, and promised him that he 
should have one of the photographs, which was duly 
sent forward to him afterwards. When we reached 
home again, we found a postal awaiting us from 
Mr. Bakker thanking us for the picture, and wishing 
us health and good fortune. I hope I may see him 
again some time, and I am sorry the picture was not 
a better one, but the shade was too deep for a snap- 
shot. 

We walked on along the road to Sloterdijk, a 



On the Road to Sloterdijk 129 

beautiful little village built in a semi-circle, with its 
back to the canal, with the housewives at their doors 
chattering with the peddlers, and a picturesque old 
tap-room with a few rustics sitting at the tables. We 
had lunch in the garden of a cafe overlooking the 
canal, and sat for a long time watching the life about 
us. Across from us a man was painfully unloading 
sand from a scow, by shovelling it into a wheelbarrow 
and then wheeling it ashore up g, steep plank. Why 
he did not simply shovel it ashore I don't know. 

Some boys were fishing in the canal, which was 
quite wide and deep, and we were the witnesses of 
a tragedy. One of the boys pulled out a good-sized 
fish — for Holland — and, as it had got all full of 
sand when he whacked it down on the bank, he 
picked it up and ran to wash it in the canal. At the 
feel of the water, the fish gave a wriggle and flipped 
itself out of its captor's hand, and was off. I shall 
never forget the boy's face as he stared at the spot 
where the fish had disappeared — it was most comical 
with dismay. Then he saw us laughing at him; his 
face changed; he laughed back, waved his hand, and 
sat down like a philosopher to catch another. 

We caught the tram back to Haarlem, after 
awhile, and had dinner that evening at the Cafe-Res- 
taurant Brinkmann, overlooking the beautiful market- 
place, and with a dignified head-waiter who looks 
like Arthur Pryor. It is a nice place, and we went 
there many times during our stay at Haarlem. 

While we sat there that evening, over our coffee, 



130 The Spell of Holland 

looking out into the busy square, a little fire-engine, 
drawn by eight or ten men, rattled by, in the midst 
of an excited crowd, and we followed along to the 
fire. Smoke was pouring from the upper windows 
of a house on a side street, but the police kept the 
crowd back, not without much savage argumentation 
with obstreperous boys. The policemen wear fierce- 
looking sabres, but I doubt if they know how to use 
them. They are certainly themselves anything but 
fierce-looking ! 

That was the only fire we saw in Holland; and 
I should imagine that fires there are very rare, for the 
houses are practically all of brick, with tile roofs and 
tile floors. The stoves are usually great porcelain 
affairs, sometimes most elaborately decorated. How 
effective they are I do not know. I have never seen 
any in use — as a stove ; in summer they are used as 
cupboards or refrigerators, and seem to make good 
ones! 






CHAPTER X< 



HAARLEM 



The interest of Haarlem centres about its market- 
place, one of the most beautifutirl Holland. At one 
side rises the immense mass of the Groote Kerk, or 
Church of St. Bavo, as it was originally, next to which 
is the unique vleeschhal or meat-market, and facing 
it across the square the old stadhuis. 

One may go from the station to the Groote Markt 
by tram, as I have said; but I would advise you to 
walk; for the street is a quaint, narrow, twisty one, 
and there never were such entrancing shop-windows 
as those which border it. Especially the bake-shop 
windows, for Holland is pre-eminently the land of 
cakes and cookies. I never thought so many differ- 
ent kinds of little cakes existed, and, more wonderful 
still, they all looked supremely good. 

Along this street, too, is an unusual assortment of 
gapers — the gaping Turk's head which, in Holland, 
is the sign of the chemist's shop. I have searched 
in vain for a reasonable explanation of that sign. 
You will see it in every Dutch city — a face some- 
times quite dark, sometimes lighter, sometimes quite 
white, with wide-open mouth, very red on the inside, 
and staring eyes, the head crowned with a resplen- 

131 



132 The Spell of Holland 

dent turban. Usually the sign is over the door, but 
later on, at Zwolle, we found a beautiful one gaping 
from a window-sill. Perhaps the sign is a survival 
of the old days when the popular medicines were 
snakes' livers and frogs' eyes and such-like things, 
and when the druggist was supposed to be an adept 
in the lore of the Orient. The shops are modern 
enough now, and the person in charge is usually a 
bright-faced girl of whom it is a pleasure to make 
a purchase. 

The bright, particular star of the Groote Markt 
is the vleeschhal, whose use is indicated by the 
sheep's and steers' heads which ornament it. Built 
in 1602 by Leiven de Kay, it is one of the quaintest 
brick-and-stone buildings existing anywhere on this 
earth. Around at the back of the building, you will 
find a little door with an iron knocker. Knock at 
this, and presently the custodian will come and let 
you in. It is a visit not to be omitted. 

The market-hall occupies the entire lower floor of 
the building, the great doors at either end opening 
directly into it. It is now crowded with cases con- 
taining the archives of North Holland. The floor 
above is gained by a narrow winding stone stairway 
in one corner. Here was the meeting-place of various 
corporations or guilds, a great beamed chamber with 
the side-beams also showing, all of oak and as solid 
as the day it was built. The hall is divided into 
smaller rooms by screens of leaded glass, and the 
beautiful old furniture and priceless tapestries which 




A ZWOLLE GAPER. 




A HAARLEM GAPER. 



Haarlem 133 



adorn these rooms combine to give one some idea 
of the dignity and importance of the bodies which 
met here. 

You will find it always true that, in viewing a 
building such as this, your own interest reacts on 
your guide's, and that his enthusiasm mounts with 
yours. Our guide at the vleeschhal was a young 
clerk or scrivener with some knowledge of English, 
and the more we wanted to know, tfye more he wanted 
to tell us. And finally, when we^ivere looking at the 
long quill pens on the table, he went to a drawer, 
got out a swan's feather and made us a pen as a 
souvenir of the visit. 

Next to the meat-hall in interest is the Groote 
Kerk, one of the few churches in Holland which it 
is a delight to visit. Its exterior is much more satis- 
fying to the eye than that of most Dutch churches, 
and the picturesque effect is heightened by the un- 
usually quaint huddle of houses clinging to its but- 
tresses. The windows have not been walled up, the 
aisles are covered by sloping roofs and not by gables, 
and the tracery of the windows is of stone, flowing 
decorated, and very beautiful. The lower part of the 
church is of brick and the clerestory of stone, with 
the buttresses faced with stone all the way down. 
There are no flying buttresses, and the interior vault- 
ing is of wood, though it is supported by stone groin- 
ing. Stone vaulting is used only at the crossing of 
nave and transept, where the great central buttresses 
carry the thrust; but I fancy it was intended origi- 



134 The Spell of Holland 

nally to use stone vaulting throughout, because on the 
buttresses of the clerestory places were left for the 
flying buttresses to start from. The building as a 
whole is immense and impressive, and you have only 
to look at one of the Ruisdael's pictures of Haarlem 
to see how its mass dominates the town. 

The interior is also satisfying, despite the clutter 
of pews and benches in the nave, and the flamboyant 
organ towering at the west end. The organ is a 
feature of every Dutch church, and the more elabo- 
rate it is, the more it seems to be esteemed. That 
at Haarlem is nearly two centuries old. There was 
no organ in existence to compare with it when it was 
built, and it remains one of the largest and most 
powerful in the world. To hear its deep tones roll- 
ing through the church is truly awe-inspiring. Handel 
has played this organ, and one day a boy of ten came 
into the church while the organist was practising and 
asked permission to try it. The organist consented; 
the boy took his place on the bench, and such music 
burst forth as that church had never heard — for 
the name of that boy was Mozart. The old stalls 
remain in the choir, and by some miracle are almost 
unmutilated, with many-coloured coats-of-arms above 
the seats, and the carving plain but good. Quaint 
animals decorate the arms, while under the miserere 
seats are grotesque heads. One evidently has the 
tooth-ache, for it is swathed in a voluminous band- 
age. 

Some of the old decorations on the pillars of ths 




INTERIOR OF GROOTE KERK, HAARLEM. 




CHOIR- STALLS, GROOTE KERK, HAARLEM. 



Haarlem 135 



choir have recently been relieved of their coat of 
white-wash, and seem to be intended to represent 
rugs or tapestries hung against them. They have, 
at least, that effect. A few old stained glass windows 
also survive, and the carving of the ambulatory screen 
is very fine. In the nave is a monument to Conrad, 
the engineer who constructed the great locks at 
Katwijk by which the Rhine is discharged into the 
sea, and at one end of the transept is an old coffin- 
case of iron, but the koster's command of English 
did not suffice for him to tell us its history. He did, 
however, show us a cannon-ball imbedded in the 
wall — a memento of the great siege of 1573. 

The church has a unique decoration in a little fleet 
of three tiny ships, hanging one behind the other in 
the south aisle, with sails spread and flags flying, 
just as though they were sailing away past Texel 
bound for the Indies. They date from 1688, having 
been given to the church by the " Schonenvaarders- 
gild," or Dutch-Swedish Trading Company, and 
show exactly the sort of ship the Dutch went to sea 
in two centuries and a half ago. They replace three 
others hung here in the church as a votive offering 
by Count William I., to commemorate the fifth cru- 
sade, of which he was the leader. The old models 
fell to pieces at last, and these later ones were hung 
up instead. These are interesting, but how much 
more interesting those old ones would have been ! 

I paused for a last look about the church, as we 
turned to go, and pictured to myself the scene on 



136 The Spell of Holland 

that July afternoon, in 1573, when the women and 
the children of the town crouched here on the pave- 
ment, praying frantically to God, while the city gates 
were opened to Alva and his Spaniards. What 
sounds of the slaughter that followed penetrated to 
them we can guess — what shrieks, what cries of 
agony and rage; but they themselves seem to have 
been spared those greater horrors which marked most 
Spanish victories, and for this mercy no doubt were 
thankful, though husbands and fathers and lovers lay 
flung apart in the gutters. 

Haarlem has another memento of that day in the 
piece of lace which is still hung at the door of a 
house where the stork is expected or has just arrived. 
Moved by unaccustomed tenderness, Don Frederic 
promised that no house should be disturbed where 
a woman lay in child-bed, and commanded that a 
piece of lace be displayed at the door of every such 
house. More wonderful still, he kept the promise, 
and to this day the same token is used to announce 
the arrival of a baby. If the lace is draped over 
a pink silk ball, the baby is a boy; if combined with 
tinselled paper, the baby is a girl; if the lace is 
double, the family has been increased by twins. It 
used to be that this lace at the front door guarded 
the house for ten days from all creditors, and per- 
haps it still does. From Haarlem, the custom has 
spread all over the province, and the amount of 
lace displayed argues well for the perpetuity of the 
Dutch people. 



Haarlem 137 



In the centre of the Groote Markt stands a bronze 
statue of Laurenz Janszoon Koster, with his name 
in Latin on the front of the pedestal, and " Typo- 
graphise letteris mobilibus metallo fusis inventor " 
on one side — a bold claim which later investigation 
has disproved. The legend is that Koster, who was 
born in Haarlem toward the end of the fourteenth 
century, walking one day with his family in the wood 
to the south of the town, to amu§£ his children broke a 
branch from a beech-tree and cut some letters in relief 
upon it. Returning home, he watched the children dip- 
ping these letters in ink and pressing them on a sheet of 
paper, and the idea of printing with movable type oc- 
curred to him. He experimented, perfected his appa- 
ratus, and finally, in 1440, printed a book, the " Specu- 
lum Humanae Salvationis." On Christmas night, of 
that year, he took part in the midnight Mass at the 
cathedral to thank God for permitting him to accom- 
plish a thing so great; but on returning home, he 
found that one of his workmen had disappeared, 
carrying with him his type and his instruments, and 
had destroyed all the copies of the book which he 
had just completed. Poor Koster was so overcome 
by this misfortune that he sank down in a fit from 
which he never rallied. 

Now, proceeds the legend, this knavish servant was 
none other than Faust of Magonza, the elder brother 
of Gutenberg. He crossed into Germany with his 
plunder, and a few years later, the first book printed 
from movable type came from Gutenberg's press. 



138 The Spell of Holland 

The Dutch believed all this for many years, set up 
the statue of Koster in the market-place, and another 
statue in the wood, on the spot where he broke that 
branch from the tree. Both statues still endure, but 
the legend has long since been exploded, and to Guten- 
berg belongs the glory of having been the inventor of 
printing with movable type. The most that Haarlem 
can claim for herself is that she was the first Dutch 
town to set up a printing press ; but all Holland soon 
resounded with hurrying presses, it became the great 
printing-house of Europe ; its greatest glory the shop 
of the Elsevirs at Leiden. 

On the other side of the Groote Markt stands the 
old stadhuis — a building interesting not only in 
itself, but in its contents. It dates from the twelfth 
century, and was originally one of the residences of 
the powerful Counts of Holland. It was afterwards 
acquired by the town, and converted into a town- 
hall. The larger portion of it is now used as a 
museum. One enters at the lower door and mounts 
into a great beamed-room with a handsome fire-place, 
evidently the banquetting-hall in the old days, but now 
empty save for a few tables and chairs. At one 
end there is a bell to ring, and you are ushered into 
the museum, whose chief glory is a collection of 
great corporation pieces by Frans Hals — a collection 
unrivalled elsewhere. Aside from these, the gem of 
the collection is a little " Cupid and Venus " by C. 
B. Van Everdigen, the drawing and colouring of which 
are wonderfully done. Cupid is tickling his mother 



Haarlem 139 



under the chin and she is laughing right out of the 
canvas. 

Of the corporation paintings I feel scarcely compe- 
tent to speak. For myself, I do not care for them; 
they are too crowded,, too overloaded with detail, to 
be pictures in the real sense of the word. However 
admirable may be the grouping, the drawing, the 
painting, and however interesting the faces of the 
sitters, I cannot appreciate a picture which refuses 
to be seen as a whole, but whicfThas a dozen points 
of interest to which the eyes are continually shifting. 
Please understand, this is merely a personal opinion; 
but for myself, I would rather have his " Jolly Man," 
who leers from the wall at tihe Rijks, or his " Jester," 
or his portrait of himself and his wife than all the 
corporation pieces Frans Hals ever painted. 

There is a registry book at the museum in which 
each visitor writes his name, and the custodian 
showed us with great pride the signature of Theodore 
Roosevelt, occupying an entire page. As we were 
coming out, a man in livery, on the lookout, of course, 
for a tip, motioned us through another door, and con- 
ducted us to the meeting-room of the burgomeester 
and the city fathers. I wonder if any city council 
in America ever had such a room? It was most 
beautiful and impressive, with a great Gobelin tapes- 
try along one wall. The tables were of polished 
oak, aged to a lovely brown, each with its quill 
pen and pewter inkwell shining like burnished 
silver* 



140 The Spell of Holland 

As we came out, I could not but speculate as to 
whether it might not pay to experiment along this 
line with American councils and boards of aldermen. 
If we should provide them with meeting-rooms of 
high dignity and beauty, cleansed of all cheap and 
tawdry things, would such surroundings, I wonder, 
impress themselves upon the councilmen, and give them 
added dignity and beauty, too? I am inclined to 
think so; to make the council-chamber a room so 
beautiful that it would be a privilege to enter it would 
surely have its effect upon the business transacted 
there ! 

We went out, that afternoon, to Zandvoort, a 
seaside resort built in the last few years around an 
old cluster of fishermen's huts huddling behind the 
dunes. The new hotels and villas, whose occupants 
visit Zandvoort only in the summer, have no such 
necessity of protection from the bitter winds of 
winter, and are built on top of the dunes, defiantly 
facing the sea. The old part is, of course, the more 
picturesque and interesting, with its little crooked 
streets and squat houses, painted white or yellow 
with red tiled roofs. No costume was perceptible 
save that rough and serviceable one which poverty 
and heavy toil make necessary. 

The dunes extend inland for some distance, and the 
electric tram runs through them, skirting a beautiful 
old winding road, shaded by magnificent trees, along 
which one would love to wander. The villas begin 



Haarlem 141 



before the higher line of dunes is reached and continue 
to the sea-front. They are all new and clean, with 
shutters painted in red and white diamonds, and most 
of them are named " Marie," or " Hildegarde," or 
" Antoinette," or some other female appellation. I 
speculated somewhat as to whether these were the 
names of the owners' wives, or merely ideal names — 
but I finally rejected the last idea, as leading to un- 
ending complications. c ~ /: 

The villas, as I have said, are very bright and 
attractive, but the surroundings are as yet rude and 
scrubby and very sandy. But the Dutchman has a way 
of making the wilderness blossom. Already rose 
gardens have been started and shrubbery planted, 
and no doubt in ten or fifteen years these gardens 
will begin to assume that beautiful and finished shape 
which Dutchmen love. How they make anything 
grow in that soil passes me; but behind one villa we 
found a patch of potatoes growing and apparently 
flourishing right in the sand ! 

We got back to Haarlem in the dusk of twilight, 
and again we sat at the Cafe Brinkmann and watched 
the busy life on the market square. It was Saturday 
evening, and the scene was more than usually ani- 
mated, the shop-windows brighter than ever, the 
carillon seemingly more beautiful. How clean and 
healthy and nice-looking these Dutch people are. 
And how good-hearted. You may bring your dog 
with you into the restaurant — if he is well-behaved, 
as all Dutch dogs seem to be — and the waiter will 



142 The Spell of Holland 

1 | — — 

bring him a plate of meat, so that he may eat at the 
same time his master does. And he eats like a gentle- 
man, with no unseemly haste. If I wasn't an Ameri- 
can, I believe I should like to be a Dutchman. 



CHAPTER XI 



ROUND ABOUT HAARLEM 



Between Haarlem and the sea lies one of the most 
picturesque parts of Holland. For here the line of 
dunes which keeps out the JTorth Sea, reaches its 
greatest height, and here, too, are the remains of the 
great forest which in years gone by clothed the whole 
coast In consequence, it is here that the wealthy 
Dutchman has chosen to build his country-house, and it 
is here that he and his family spend a large portion 
of every year. For the Dutch are very fond of the 
outdoors, and the country-house is preferred to the 
town-house as long as the weather permits of wide- 
open windows. 

These country-places are not " estates," as the word 
is understood in England and France, and is coming 
to be understood in this country — that is to say, 
they consist of only an acre or two, but that little 
tract of land is made as beautiful as possible. There 
is the house of red brick, with its steep roof and tall 
windows, carefully placed so that none of the old 
trees will be interfered with; the grounds are planted 
with flowering shrubs, and further brightened by 
beds of tulips and geraniums and begonias; canals 
and ponds are laid out, and water-lilies planted in 

143 



144 The Spell of Holland 

them; a pretty little summer-house is built where 
the family may take its meals out-of-doors, and the 
passing years make the place complete. A more 
attractive one would be hard to find anywhere. 

These are the older villas, the summer-residences 
of the aristocracy. The newer ones, built by ordi- 
narily wealthy men-of -affairs, are of wood, gayly- 
painted, set in the midst of a flower-crammed half- 
acre. They, also, are most attractive; for the Dutch 
do these things better than we! 

It was to see these villas, new and old, and to 
explore the dunes beyond them that we left Haarlem 
that Sunday morning, taking the electric tram to 
Bloemendaal, itself a collection of country-houses, 
each more charming than the other. Just beyond the 
town, the wood commences, a wood of mighty elms 
and beeches, through which are many paths. The 
main road leads to the famous old inn, the Duin en 
Daal, back of which, on a lofty dune, from which a 
large Dutch flag was flying, is a lookout whence one 
may see Haarlem with the Groote Kerk high in its 
midst, Amsterdam with its many towers and great 
gas-tanks, and, farther to the left, the clustered wind- 
mills of the Zaanland. 

Turning to the right, just before the hotel is 
reached, is the road leading to Meerenberg and the 
ruins of the castle of Brederode, and this we took. 
The road runs on through the wood, with the dunes 
mounting steeply to the left, past villa after villa, 
each with its garden, and sun-parlour and out-door 



Round About Haarlem 145 

dining-room, and each with its windows wide open 
to the soft yet bracing breeze. I have heard it said 
that a Dutchman never opens the windows of his 
town-house and never closes those of his country one, 
and I can at least testify to the truth of the latter 
part of the epigram. In the country he certainly 
seems to have a passion for fresh air. All of the 
houses had their brightly-painted wooden shutters 
swung back against the wall, and the design most 
common was a green border, with an hour-glass in 
red from top to bottom, and the triangles at the sides 
in white. This is the favourite design all over Hol- 
land, and I think it is intended to simulate a red cur- 
tain tied together in the middle. When the shutters 
are closed, the figure certainly has that effect. 

A mile farther brought us to the picturesque, ivy- 
grown brick ruins of the chateau, once the strong- 
hold of the powerful counts of Brederode. If you 
have read your Motley, you will remember the hard- 
drinking, hard-swearing, rash and yet patriotic noble- 
man of that name who so helped and hindered William 
of Orange in the first stages of the struggle for Dutch 
independence, the founder of the " Beggars," who 
were to strike the first effective blow of the contest, 
and you will approach these ruins with heightened 
interest. It is evident that the castle was an exten- 
sive one, and the ruins are both imposing and beau- 
tiful. The wide moat is still filled with water, gay 
with lilies, but a permanent wooden bridge has re- 
placed the old drawbridge, and only one of the towers 



146 The Spell of Holland 

can boast a roof — a modern one of slate. A wind- 
ing and worn brick stairway leads to the top of this 
tower, whence is a pleasant view of the woods and 
the dunes. 

A portion of the keep has fallen down, exposing 
the narrow stairway leading to the top. It is of 
brick, and each step is supported by a little brick 
arch so perfectly built that it has survived unshaken 
the weight of centuries. The walls are very massive, 
battlemented, and pierced for the archers or mus- 
keteers. The wide Dutch fireplace survives in what 
was once the banquetting-hall, and the beautiful stone 
flagging of the floor is well preserved. 

I do not think that many visitors from other lands 
find their way to this picturesque spot. For one 
thing, the custodian seemed much impressed by our 
arrival, and for another he knew not a single word 
of English. It is a pity, for the place is well worth 
visiting in itself, and the country round about it is 
as interesting as any in Holland. 

From the ruins, we turned along a narrow road 
shaded by tall trees, known as the Berg Weg, or 
Mountain Road, and were soon among the dunes that 
Ruisdael loved to paint. Indeed, it was from this 
neighbourhood that he drew his inspiration almost 
wholly in the early days of his career, before the 
demand for " ideal scenes," waterfalls and old mills 
and such things, corrupted his brush. 

We left the road, presently, and struck off among 
the dunes, through groves of dwarfed and twisted 



Round About Haarlem 147 

pines, with the needles thick underfoot, filling the air 
with their delicious odour; across the dry and brittle 
moss, through the furze and sand-grass, starting a 
great rabbit now and then, as brown as the ground 
it scurried over. Here and there, across the face of 
the dunes, a streak of vivid yellow marked a sand- 
slip, but the prevailing tones were of dark green and 
dark brown, deeply melancholy. Wild roses were 
thick underfoot, and green ancL yellow moss, and 
pretty little blue and yellow flowers, and thyme and 
eglantine, dwarfed to mere miniatures by the poverty 
of the soil in which their lot was cast. It was inter- 
esting to note how their size increased in the damp 
hollows and diminished on the dry ridges. The 
yellow broom seemed to be the only plant indifferent 
to wind and drought, and its feathery plumes waved 
to us from every side, while its long roots pushed 
far out in all directions in search of sustenance. The 
growth of the broom is encouraged in every way, 
because its vigorous roots help to bind the sand. 

It was a windy day, with gray clouds scudding 
across the sky and a dash of rain now and then — 
just the weather to fit the scene. I wish I could 
describe it. The dunes are not mere mounds of sand, 
but hills rising sometimes to a height of two hundred 
feet, and extending inland three or four miles. And 
since they were formed by wind and not by water, the 
effect at first is most bewildering. For there are no 
ordered valleys and continuous ridges as in water- 
formed hills, but peaks and hollows without system or 



148 The Spell of Holland 

connection. It is not possible to follow either a ridge 
or a valley, but one is continually either mounting or 
descending. 

We walked for an hour or more amid this wild 
and desolate waste, coming upon an artist under his 
white umbrella in a sheltered corner, and from the 
tops of the higher dunes catching glimpses of the gray 
sea to the west or of the plains, with their canals 
and windmills, to the east. A station of the Water- 
staat reminded us that even here vigilance was neces- 
sary to guard against the encroachments of the sea — 
and perhaps even more to keep these shifting sands 
from rolling inland over the fertile country. 

The wind presently drove the rain before it, and 
the sun shone from a sky of soft blue, with great 
banks of white clouds piled across it. We made our 
way back to the road reluctantly, for there is a fas- 
cination about these dunes — the sort of fascination 
that makes one long to spend days and nights dream- 
ing among them. 

We followed the road through a wood, and past 
the dearest of old Dutch farmsteads, lying close to 
the ground and guarded by great elms and by a mighty 
hay-rick, full to bursting, and a scarcely-less-mighty 
woodpile, pregnant with promise of cheerful winter 
evenings. Around it stretched the sand, but in that 
sand vegetables of all kinds were planted, and — I 
know not by what miracle of culture — apparently 
thriving. The farmers here on the borders of these 
dunes have a problem to confront exactly the opposite 



Round About Haarlem 149 

of that which confronts all the other farmers of 
Holland. Elsewhere it is a never-ceasing battle 
against water; here the battle is just as bitter against 
drouth. The Dutch farmer seems to be able to win 
both. 

We came back, at last, into the Meerenbergsche 
Weg, with its gay villas, each with its name painted 
over the door. Here there was greater diversity than 
at Zandvoort, for besides women's/ names, we noticed 
such mottoes as " Wei Tevreden " or " Well Con- 
tent " ; " Buiten Zorg " or " Without Care " ; " Anna's 
Lust," the latter word meaning pleasure or delight; 
" Groot Genoeg " or " Large Enough " ; " Mijn 
Rust" or "My Repose"; " Neit Zoo Quaalijk " or 
" Not So Bad," — each motto being, I suppose, a sort 
of formula of the philosophy of the owner of the 
place. This philosophy, I may add, seems pretty much 
of a piece, for the mottoes all belong to the same 
family, and occur again and again on country-houses 
all over Holland. 

We stopped for lunch at a clean little inn at the 
crossroads, and then, striking into a pretty foot-path, 
made our way back through the woods, and so to 
the tram for Haarlem. 

Haarlem improves with acquaintance, and one is al- 
ways discovering new points of interest. That Sunday 
evening, the orphans were especially in evidence, 
strolling about the streets. We had first become 
aware of the orphans at Leiden, where, having noticed 



150 The Spell of Holland 

among the crowd, certain bright-faced girls of six- 
teen or seventeen in white caps and neat black gowns, 
we had asked if they were nurses, and had been told 
that they were orphans. We did not fully understand, 
then, and let the matter pass in the hurry of the 
moment, but when we got to Haarlem, and saw boys 
and girls going along the street in costumes one sleeve 
of which was blue and the other red, the thing de- 
manded investigation. 

It then developed that these orphanages exist all 
over Holland, every town of importance having one 
or more. They are privately supported, and as most 
of them have been in existence since the middle ages, 
they are usually well-endowed. Some of them are 
sectarian, others are maintained by various societies, 
and still others are open only to the orphans of a 
particular locality; but it is considered rather an 
honour to be admitted to them, and the children so 
admitted are carefully educated, the girls to be good 
housewives, the boys to be useful men. 

The orphanage at Haarlem is a large one, and its 
peculiar costume is very ancient. That of the boys 
is a suit all black, except that the left sleeve of the 
coat is a bright red, and the right sleeve a bright 
blue; but the costume of the girls is very fetching, 
their white caps setting off their rosy and healthy 
faces, and their parti-coloured sleeves being elbow- 
length, with snowy undersleeves extending to the 
wrists. As one sees them pass, so pretty and so 
happy, with eyes so blue and innocent and lips so 



Round About Haarlem 151 

red and inviting, one cannot but marvel that they 
have not been appropriated long since. I can well 
believe that the work these orphanages do in educating 
these children is a most important and beneficial one. 

Nor is it with the children alone that the Dutch 
concern themselves. All over the land are institu- 
tions where the old may find a refuge for their last 
years. Haarlem is particularly rich in these hofjes, 
as they are called, but every town /has them, as we 
have seen at Leiden. They are usually pleasant groups 
of little dwellings arranged around a beautifully-kept 
court, each with its own front door. Sometimes you 
pass through a weather-beaten arched gateway from 
the turmoil of the busy street into the quiet of one of 
these retreats, whose inmates are sitting placidly at 
their doors, knitting and gossiping, — awaiting, with- 
out fear I hope, the last summons. 

These hofjes are not, as I understand it, maintained 
by the state, but by private endowments, and the re- 
strictions governing them vary greatly. Admission 
to many of them may be gained by the payment of 
a certain sum; others are open free under certain 
restrictions; in some the life is of an almost con- 
ventual strictness; in others it differs little from the 
life of the rest of the world. Of the value of these 
institutions I am too little informed to hazard an 
opinion; but the nice, clean old men and women in 
them certainly seem contented and happy, and I can 
imagine no better way of passing the years after one's 
usefulness is over. 



152 The Spell of Holland 

The people of Haarlem seem brighter and better- 
dressed than elsewhere, but this may be only the re- 
flection of their pretty town. Looked at closely, few 
of the women are beautiful and few of the men 
handsome; but most of them look kind-hearted and 
honest, which is, perhaps, of more importance. On 
Sunday afternoon, they turn out en masse, and the 
main streets are thronged from side to side by the 
parading crowds in their best clothes, the men gravely 
tipping their hats to each other, but not to the women, 
as they pass. There is a great deal of flirtation, and 
the girls seem uncommonly ready to smile and be 
talked to and treated to beer and poflfertjes. The 
cafes are crowded, and the result is apparent as eve- 
ning falls. Filled with beer, the peasant is moved to 
an elephantine gayety; but his idea of a good time 
seems to be limited to singing raucously up and down 
the streets, or putting his arm around his best girl 
and charging along the pavements with her. The 
police evidently do not consider this disorderly. 

In the evening, we strolled out to the beautiful 
forest of Haarlem to the south of the town, with 
its fine avenues of limes and beeches — such a pleas- 
ure-ground as no American town I know possesses. 
The clear light of the evening filtered through the 
leaves, and the incomparable odour of the woods filled 
our nostrils. Near the entrance, a band was playing, 
softened by the distance, and the moment was one 
to soothe and uplift the spirit. 

But the lights and bustle of the streets lured us 



Round About Haarlem 153 

back, at last. Never were there such delicatessen and 
sweet-meat displays as those in the Haarlem shop- 
windows ! Outdoor bakeries of poffertjes and wafelen 
are on every hand, and even more frequent are the 
hand-carts heaped high with fried eels. The eels 
are carefully assorted as to size, varying from mere 
worms to monsters a yard long, and they are sold 
by weight. They are very dark, as though they had 
been smoked, and are anything but appetizing in 
appearance, and still less so as to smell. We specu- 
lated as to whether the proper way to eat an eel was 
the same at Haarlem as at Leiden, and whether one 
should begin at the head or the tail Observation 
showed that the flesh must be gnawed off sideways, 
from left to right. 

Lovers of old Dutch silver, brass and pewter — tin, 
they call it — will find many attractive shops at 
Haarlem, and the prices surprisingly reasonable. Most 
attractive of all, I think, is a little shop huddling under 
the great buttresses of the Groote Kerk. Never did 
brass and pewter shine as they shine here, and nearly 
as bright is the face of the pretty woman who owns 
it, Madame van Veldhuijsen, to whom my compli- 
ments and best wishes. The neighbourhood of Haar- 
lem is rich in this old ware, and I should hate to tell 
how many pieces Betty purchased ! 



CHAPTER XII 



A STROLL ON THE BEACH 



We left Haarlem next morning for a day along 
the North Sea, running down to Leiden through the 
fields of horticulturists, looking for the most part dead 
and sere, now that the tulips were done blooming 
and the bulbs in the ground waiting to be dug. April 
is the time to see these fields in their full glory. A 
few fields of Japanese iris were still in bloom, but 
even they were beginning to fade. The sandy soil 
about Haarlem is peculiarly suited to the culture of 
these bulbs, and the business has grown to great pro- 
portions. But it is a steady and humdrum business 
now, quite without that element of romance which 
attached to it in the days when Cornelis van Baerle 
grew his Black Tulip, and, here in the Haarlem mar- 
ket-place, won, at the same time, the prize of a hun- 
dred thousand florins and the hand of the woman he 
loved ! 

At Leiden we walked up to the Korte Galgewater, 
stopping on the way to admire a tall windmill, beauti- 
fully placed behind a screen of trees, and reflected in 
a tiny river at its foot. At the wharf, we found 
waiting the little black, narrow steamboat for Katwijk 
aan Zee. The skipper, a short and stout little Dutch- 

154 



A Stroll on the Beach 155 

man, and the crew, a lean and scraggy one, received 
us with great empressement. 

Having assisted us to the deck, the crew rang the 
landing-bell and cast loose, and the captain punted the 
boat around until she was headed the right way, then 
the crew dived into the engine-room, the engine began 
to beat, the screw to turn, and we were off. We were 
the only passengers. The freight on board could have 
been carried in a wheelbarrow, and^lt was difficult to 
see how the boat paid expenses — but the same mys- 
tery attaches to almost all these little boats. 

We came to a railroad bridge, presently, and tied 
up alongside until a train passed. Then the bridge- 
men laboriously unbolted the fish-plates, swung the 
bridge open for us to pass, and we puffed through 
without paying toll, and headed down the Rhine. 
The Rhine — think of it! The same river which had 
its origin nine hundred miles away in Switzerland — 
though I doubt if any of this water came so far. The 
Dutch play hob with the Rhine as soon as they get 
their hands on it. They divide it up into three lesser 
streams, which they name the Waal, the Ijssel and 
the Lek. The Rhine, as such, drops out of the world 
entirely, only to bob up again like a ghost here at 
Leiden. A very attenuated ghost it is — scarcely a 
shadow of the great river which rolled down from 
Germany. 

It was Monday, and therefore wash-day, and the 
women all along the banks were kneeling in their 
washing-boxes and swishing clothes around in the 



156 The Spell of Holland 

stream. These washing-boxes are little water-tight 
compartments sunk level with the water at the back 
doors of the houses along the river-edge, and the 
women knelt in them and rubbed a little soap on the 
garment they were washing, and pounded it on the 
platform in front of them, and then swashed it around 
in the cold water, and wrung it out and laid it on 
the grass to dry. It looked back-breaking and clammy 
work, but it seems effective enough, for Dutch linen 
is the whitest in the world. There was a time, before 
artificial bleaching was discovered, when linen from 
all over the world was sent here to be whitened, the 
damp atmosphere and the water of the canals, espe- 
cially at Haarlem, being supposed to possess some 
mysteriously effective quality ; and so " Hollands " 
came to be the generic name for white linen — a name 
which is still sometimes used. 

Presently we saw a stork's nest on top of a high 
pole, evidently placed there especially for it, with the 
stork standing immobile on one leg disdainfully 
watching the scene below. There were two young- 
sters in the nest, and by the way they were craning 
their necks out of it, they seemed much more inter- 
ested in the world than their mother was. The Dutch 
peasant believes that no woman will die in child-bed 
in a house on which a stork has built, and as the Dutch 
birthrate is high, the stork is as sacred in Holland 
as the ibis was in Egypt. It is an interesting coin- 
cidence that both birds belong to the same family. 

Katwijk-ann-den-Rijn is a pretty cluster of red- 



A Stroll on the Beach 157 

roofed houses, set so close to the river that the boat 
almost grazes them as it chug-chugs along. Just 
beyond, two big canals enter the river, which broadens 
to a considerable stream, confined between high banks, 
its margin gay with white and yellow water-lilies. 
All along, in the fields on either side, were men and 
women on their knees digging potatoes with little 
trowels. And at last, ahead of us, we saw a great 
five-arched water-gate — one of the eleven which hold 
back the waves of the North Sea and keep Holland 
safe. 

This great engineering work, constructed over a 
hundred years ago by that Conrad whose tomb we 
have seen in the church at Haarlem, deserves a close 
inspection, and is most impressive. Time was when 
the Rhine did not get to the sea at all, but ended 
ignominiously here in a sandy swamp, a constant 
menace to the country. The Dutch decided to change 
all that; high banks were built to guard the river, a 
way was cut through the dunes, and a series of sluices 
built to carry the water into the sea. During high 
tide the gates are closed, to keep out the water of 
the ocean, which rises many feet above the level of 
the river. At low tide, the gates are opened, and the 
banked-up water of the Rhine rushes forth with a 
force which sweeps away the sand which the waves 
of the sea have heaped up in the channel. 

Sometimes, during stormy weather, the wind piles 
up the waves so high along the coast that the gates 
cannot be opened for several days; and then, if the 



158 The Spell of Holland 

river happens to be also in flood, the low country 
along it is in great danger from the accumulated water. 
One look at those mighty gates is, however, enough 
to show that the sea will never break through them. 
The dyke stretching away on either side is also very 
massive, of solid masonry which nothing but an 
earthquake could displace. It stands defiantly holding 
back the sea, keeping watch and ward over the land, 
which sleeps in peace behind it, knowing that it is 
strong and trustworthy. 

It was noon when we reached Katwijk, and as we 
made our way toward the sea- front along the crooked 
streets, we passed a school which had just been dis- 
missed, and the clatter of the wooden shoes on the 
cobbled pavement was something terrific. Men and 
women were returning from work in the fields for 
the noon meal — strong and straight, most of them, 
and with honesty's fearless eyes. 

Like most other Dutch seaside resorts, Katwijk is 
divided sharply into two parts — the old part, con- 
sisting of the huddled houses of the fishermen, and 
the new part, consisting of the villas and hotels for 
the summer visitors. And, as always, the fishermen's 
houses crouch behind the dunes, while the hotels stare 
insolently down upon the sea from above them. The 
old quarter is of more relative importance here than 
at the larger resorts, for the town still has seventy 
smacks engaged in the herring fishery. 

But we had come to Katwijk only as a starting- 
point for one of the most characteristic beach- walks 




THE MOUTH OF THE RHINE, KATWIJK. 




SHELL-GATHERER ON THE BEACH, KATWIJK. 



A Stroll on the Beach 159 

on the Dutch coast, and as soon as we had glanced 
at the town, we turned our backs upon it, and, making 
our way over the Rhine locks, headed away toward 
Noordwijk, three miles distant. The tide was out 
and just at the turn, so that there was a beautiful 
stretch of smooth, hard sand — better walking by far 
than the cobbles of the towns. There was a strong 
wind at our backs, with dark clouds scudding across 
the sky, and a spatter of rain now and then, and the 
sea was gray and angry, with a booming surf. 

Waist-deep in this surf, a number of men were 
working with little hand-nets, which they would dip 
into the waves, as they rolled in, and then would 
empty into a high, two-wheeled cart, which had been 
driven as near them as the waves would permit. We 
could see that the nets were heavy with something, 
and we were puzzled for a long time as to what it 
was the men were catching; but finally one of the 
carts came driving past us along the beach with one 
of the men in attendance, and we saw that it was 
heaped high with shells. The waves bring these shells 
in in great quantities, and it is quite in line with the 
Dutchman's idea of the fitness of things that the 
ocean should be made to provide its own manacles. 
For these shells are calcined into lime in the kilns at 
Katwijk, and this lime furnishes the mortar which 
holds the dykes in the neighbourhood together. This 
shell-gathering seems to be the principal pursuit of 
the Katwijk fishermen outside the herring season, and 
the beach was lined with carts almost as far as 



160 The Spell of Holland 

Noordwijk. The shell-gatherers were tall, sturdy fel- 
lows, as hard as iron, and did not seem to feel the 
exposure consequent upon standing in the cold water 
for an hour or two at a time. 

Half-way down the beach, we passed the blackened 
remnants of a wreck, buried in the sand, with a flock 
of gulls and some darker birds whirling about it. 
The beach widened as we neared Noordwijk, which 
is a resort of more importance than its sister to the 
south, for the beach is covered with hooded chairs, 
as at Scheveningen, and the villas and hotels topping 
the dunes are quite elaborate. 

We returned to Leiden by the crookedest of tram- 
lines across a country which must be one of the 
garden-spots of Holland. As far as the eye could 
see were broad stretches of gardens, with men and 
women on their knees digging potatoes and tulip- 
bulbs, picking strawberries, or preparing the land just 
vacated by one crop for another, for no season of 
the year is wasted here in Holland, and the ground 
is seldom empty. 

This being Monday night, the town orchestra of 
Haarlem, about forty strong, was assembled in a tem- 
porary grand-stand in the middle of the Groote Markt, 
as we came out from dinner at the Brinkmann. We 
did not linger, but rode out to take another look at 
the beautiful forest of Haarlem. The trees are very 
tall and straight, truly like the pillars of a cathedral, 
especially a Dutch cathedral, where the pillars are 



A Stroll on the Beach 161 

always slim and round. Luckily it has not occurred 
to the Dutch to whitewash the wooden ones as they 
do those of brick, and a stroll along these green- 
vaulted aisles, scented as no incense ever scented stone- 
vaulted ones, is truly a balm to the spirit. 

We had a last look through Haarlem next morning, 
and a visit to Madame van Veldhuijsen under the 
shadow of the cathedral, lured back by some old 
pewter without which we could not summon up resolu- 
tion to leave the town. We saw, too, the first funeral 
we had seen in the country, proceeding solemnly to 
the obscure burying-ground somewhere in the out- 
skirts. Two men marched in front in cocked hats, 
which they wore fore and aft, so to speak, while the 
driver of the hearse wore his crosswise. There may 
be some etiquette in this which the stranger in the 
country does not understand; or perhaps it is only 
a matter of personal preference. The hearse was very 
ornate, but without glass, so that the draped coffin 
within was fully visible. Behind came the pall-bearers 
on foot, each in a braided frock-coat and rusty top- 
hat, which evidently had seen service at many former 
ceremonies. There were eight pall-bearers in all, and 
after them came the mourners in two carriages with 
the curtains tightly drawn. 

Time was when this procession would have been 
headed by a huilebalk, with wide-brimmed hat and 
long-tailed coat, a black-bordered handkerchief in his 
hand, and real tears coursing down his cheeks; but 
I fear the huilebalk has vanished from this earth, 



162 The Spell of Holland 

together with knights-errant and magicians and prin- 
cesses in distress, and many other charming and in- 
teresting things! 

I have already spoken of the wonderful shop- 
windows of the Haarlem pastry-cooks; and those of 
the toy-shops are scarcely less wonderful. Dutch 
children seem to be educated in household ways by 
means of elaborate toys, and it is possible in these 
shops to buy all sorts of household things in minia- 
ture, even to a residence completely furnished. These, 
I imagine, are for the girls, as these houses always 
have a nursery in them, with the baby in its cradle; 
while for the boys are devised startling mechanical 
contrivances of all degrees of ingenuity. The Dutch 
are great lovers of such contrivances. Many of their 
clock-towers are equipped with mechanical figures, 
which perform when the hour strikes; elaborate 
automata are exhibited at all the festivals; sleight- 
of-hand and unusual dexterity of any kind are much 
admired; and acrobats form a part of every enter- 
tainment. That fellow who practised with a handful 
of peas until he could impale them all upon pin-points 
at a single throw would have been well rewarded 
in Holland! 

There is a story that, when Peter the Great was 
ready to leave Amsterdam, he desired to take back 
to Russia a memento of his stay in Holland, and com- 
missioned a Dutch nobleman to have made for him a 
miniature replica of a Dutch mansion. That commis- 
sion was undertaken in the gravest spirit. Expert cab- 



A Stroll on the Beach 163 

inet-makers made the furniture; expert jewellers the 
plate; the carpets were woven at Utrecht, the lace at 
Bruges, the linen at Ghent; tiny books, readable only 
with a microscope, were engraved for the shelves of the 
library; miniature-painters executed the pictures for 
the walls. At last the house was done. But twenty- 
five years had elapsed ; a hundred thousand florins had 
been expended; and Peter, who had other things to 
think about, had long since forgotten the commission. 
So this most elaborate and costly of all toys found 
a resting-place in a museum at The Hague — a monu- 
ment to Dutch patience and ingenuity. 

The Dutchman, too, likes to see what is passing 
in the street. The open fronts of Dutch cafes are 
a proof of this, but there is another, even more 
striking. For, to the front of nearly every private 
house, is affixed a double mirror set at such an angle 
that a person sitting inside the window can see up 
and dow r n the street. Or perhaps it is the women 
who demand this diversion. It is somewhat startling, 
as you are walking along the pavement, to find your- 
self gazing suddenly into a pair of tranquil eyes, and 
it is a moment before you realize that you are looking 
at some lady seated at her work inside the house, 
who, of course, is also looking at you! 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE TOWN ON THE AMSTEL 

Haarlem grows on one, the longer one remains 
there, and we looked back upon it with regret from 
the windows of the train which bore us away to 
Amsterdam, only a few miles distant. Most towns 
in Holland are " only a few miles distant," and rail- 
way journeys are soon accomplished. By rail from 
Haarlem to Amsterdam takes about fifteen minutes, 
and before the Groote Kerk of Haarlem was out of 
sight behind, the clustered towers of Amsterdam 
loomed ahead. Half an hour later, we had found a 
quiet inn, engaged a gorgeous apartment on the first 
floor at a price ridiculously small, even though it did 
look out upon the busy Damrak, with a little vine- 
embowered balcony in front, where one might sit 
and watch the crowded life in the street below. 

Amsterdam is the most characteristic of the three 
great cities of Holland. Its broad, concentric canals, 
mirroring the narrow, high-gabled houses leaning 
above them, and thronged with boats from every por- 
tion of the country, give the town a Dutch air not 
to be mistaken; and, especially in the older parts, it 
is indescribably picturesque. I can imagine nothing 
more so than the maze of narrow and crooked streets 

164 



The Town on the Amstel 165 

about the Oude Kerk, which look to-day much as 
they must have looked three hundred years ago. 

The Dutch atmosphere is further accented by the 
presence of many costumes in the streets, for Marken 
and Volendam and Broek are not far away, and their 
women are especially esteemed, here at Amsterdam, 
as nursemaids; added to which is the queerest cos- 
tume of all — that of the local orphans. At Haarlem 
they were conspicuous enough with one sleeve red 
and the other blue ; here they fairly take one's breath 
away, one-half black and one-half red. 

I mean that literally, astonishing as it may sound. 
If the orphan is a boy, the left half of his coat is 
of bright red cloth and the right half of black; if 
a girl, both skirt and bodice are divided longitudinally 
in the same manner. Betty said it reminded her of 
the " Boo-hoo, ha-ha " chorus in "The Three 
Twins." Why the boys' trousers are not divided in 
colour I don't know, but they are of decent black. 
Perhaps the moralists thought it dangerous to encase 
one leg in red. 

We were surprised to see male orphans swaggering 
about the streets smoking or promenading with their 
best girls, and the female orphans, or " Amster- 
damsche burgerweismeisjes," as they are called, quite 
grown up and much interested in the men. But it 
seems that orphans stay in the institution until they 
are of age, after which they are expected to shift 
for themselves. The boys are usually apprenticed to 
some trade and the girls are found a position in a 



166 The Spell of Holland 

private family. They are much sought after, because 
of their excellent training. 

The orphanage at Amsterdam was founded early 
in the sixteenth century by a woman named Haasje 
Claas, who gave seven houses in the Kalverstraat for 
the purpose. I do not know whether Haasje pre- 
scribed the costume, but it dates from very early in 
the institution's history. It was made as striking as 
possible in order that it might be instantly recognized 
by tavern-keepers, who are forbidden to serve orphans, 
and also by railway officials and drivers of all public 
conveyances, for no orphan may travel away from 
the city without a special permit. 

Haasje Claas's gift was only the beginning of an 
endowment which is now very large, for the orphanage 
gets many legacies every year; this sort of benefac- 
tion being very popular all over Holland. To be 
admitted the applicant must be the child of citizens 
of Amsterdam belonging to one of the Protestant 
churches. The body must be looked after, no less 
than the mind, in all these orphanages, for I never 
saw healthier, nicer-looking boys and girls. 

My pen falters at the task of trying to describe 
Amsterdam, it is so varied, so immense, so many- 
sided. Its greatest attraction — the greatest in all 
Holland — is the Rijks Museum, that unparallelled 
treasure-house of Dutch art, for which I shall reserve 
a separate chapter. Then there is the Municipal 
Museum, rich in modern Dutch art; the royal palace, 
the two great churches, the teeming Jewish quarter, 



The Town on the Amstel 167 



the superb Zoological garden, and last but not least, 
the streets — above all, the Kalverstraat, that narrow 
and crooked thoroughfare packed every evening from 
curb to curb with a jocular, good-natured mob. No- 
where else have I seen anything quite like the Kalver- 
straat. 

Amsterdam is built like a horse-shoe, or, rather, 
like a lot of horse-shoes, one inside the other, or like 
a great amphitheatre with the river Ij as the stage, 
and the streets and canals the rows of seats. For 
they run in semi-circles, beginning and ending in the 
Ij, and in the centre is the Dam, where the routes 
of all tram-cars also begin and end. 

The Dam is where the town started, for this is the 
spot which, in 1204, Gijsbrecht II. selected as the site 
for his castle. At that time, the Amstel flowed into 
the Ij here, and so Gijsbrecht had to build a dam 
to turn the Amstel aside, and from this dam the town 
took its name. Gijsbrecht's followers built their 
hovels about the castle walls, and so a town began. 
Strangely enough, the Dam has remained the hub 
about which the city has grown in concentric semi- 
circles. 

If your hotel is near the Dam, you will have no 
trouble getting anywhere; and, better still, you will 
have no trouble getting back, for all trams stop there 
sooner or later. Also you will become acquainted 
with the most persistent guides in Europe — little 
men in rusty black, with fat umbrellas under their 
arms, and a burnished badge on their hats, who beg, 



168 The Spell of Holland 

who insist, who threaten for the privilege of showing 
you the sights — not for their sake, be it understood, 
but for your own, in order that they may accomplish 
for you a vast saving of time and money. 

I have wondered in vain why it is that the guides 
of Amsterdam are more leech-like than those of any 
other town — far surpassing even those at the en- 
trance to the Louvre. Perhaps it is because their 
case is such a desperate one ; for no one with a tongue 
and pair of eyes in his head has the slightest need 
of them. Betty and I passed there so often, that at 
last they got to know us, and even touched their hats 
to us and smiled in a sort of sheepish camaraderie, 
as though asking us not to give them away. 

Another acquaintance we made was a beggar, whose 
beat was up and down the Damrak. He was a jovial- 
faced fellow, both of whose legs had been cut off 
just below the body in some accident, and who navi- 
gated up and down the pavement on a stool, which 
he manipulated with wonderful dexterity. We gave 
him a few cents the first time we saw him, and after 
that he was a sworn friend of ours, always stopping 
to smile and lift his hat as we passed by, and never 
again did he ask us for money. We could not but 
like him for the light-hearted way in which he faced 
the world which had used him so terribly. 

The Dam, then, is the natural starting-point for 
all expeditions about Amsterdam, and some of the 
principal attractions are near by. The royal palace 
shadows it to the west, and the Nieuwe Kerk to the 



The Town on the Amstel 169 

north. From its southern side starts the Kalver- 
straat, and a little distance down this is the entrance 
to the municipal orphanage, while the next side street 
leads to the Begijnenhof, still kept by the sisters of 
St. Begga much as it was five hundred years ago. 

One gets into the palace by going around to the 
back and ringing at a door there; but before doing 
so, one should know a few facts of its history — that 
it was built as a town-hall about tl?e middle of the 
seventeenth century; that when, 46 1808, Napoleon 
annexed the Netherlands to France on the theory that 
they were really French soil, the alluvium of French 
rivers, and made Louis Bonaparte king of the coun- 
try, Amsterdam presented this building to the new 
king for his residence, and the latter did his best to 
remodel it into something it was not intended for — 
a place to live in. So, as one goes through the build- 
ing, one sees these two purposes constantly at war; 
for Louis Bonaparte's disfigurements and partitions of 
imitation marble have been allowed to stand. The 
queen lives here for a week every year, as Dutch law 
requires, and it may be that, after the palace at The 
Hague, she would not feel entirely at home without 
some imitation marble on the premises. 

There is nothing imitation about the magnificent 
marble put into the place when it was built, and 
one can only marvel at the wealth of sculpture, 
admirably done by Artus Quellin and his assistants. 
In the carving about the doors of the various offices 
of the city government, Dutch humour had full play. 



170 The Spell of Holland 

Above the door of the secretary's office is Discretion, 
with a finger on her lips, and Fidelity, typified by a 
dog watching his dead master. About the door of 
the room for marriages are carved billing and cooing 
doves. The old court-room is decorated by reliefs 
showing Wisdom, as exemplified by the judgment of 
Solomon, with a soldier, as usual, holding the baby 
up by one leg ready to slice it in two; Justice, as 
exemplified by Brutus ordering his sons to execution; 
and a number of other scenes of the same sort. The 
door opening into the office for bankrupts has a relief 
showing the fall of Icarus, who tried to fly too high, 
and an ornamental moulding of rats and mice gnawing 
scattered papers and empty money-boxes. 

The building is full of this sort of sculptural allu- 
sion, which reaches its culmination in the reception 
hall, a magnificent and imposing apartment, entirely 
lined with white marble, and with so many allegorical 
groups in it that it takes quite a while to puzzle them 
out. Our conductor, a nice-faced old man, was deter- 
mined, however, that we should miss nothing, and 
especially delighted in calling our attention to the 
deceptive paintings in some of the rooms — a marble 
frieze w r hich was really only a flat surface, a row 
of palings before w r hich one stopped but which were 
really painted on the wall a yard away, and so on. 
This is the sort of childish tomfoolery of which the 
Dutch seem especially fond 

We had quite a chat with the custodian afterwards 
when, feeling that he had done his whole duty by 





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The Town on the Amstel 171 

us, he permitted himself to relax. He was very proud 
of Wilhelmina and of the Princess Juliana and even 
condescendingly friendly toward the Prince Consort. 
The Dutch people generally seem to be fond of the 
queen and the baby, and to regard the prince as a 
necessary evil. Pictures of them are everywhere — 
in hotels, in public buildings, and in private houses; 
and an immense traffic is done in two postcards, one 
showing the queen snuggling the. baby's face up to 
hers, and the other displaying the prince sitting stiffly 
upright with the baby on his knee. It is a difficult 
position, and he looks rather foolish, as who would 
not! I never see that picture without thinking of an 
evening, many years ago, when I happened into a 
music-hall in lower New York. It was one of those 
music-halls where the audience is expected to join in 
the choruses of the songs; but they didn't warm up 
to it that night until one of the performers sang a 
sentimental ditty about the joys of home and wife 
and children, with a chorus that went something like 
this: 

He never cares to wander from his own fireside, 
He never cares to wander or to roam ; 

With his baby on his knee, 

He's as happy as can be, 
For there's no place like home sweet home. 

I have never forgotten those words, though I never 
heard them again, nor have I ever forgotten how those 
tattered, toil-stained, poverty-bitten, sin-scarred men 
and women joined in singing them. It was just the 



172 The Spell of Holland 

sort of pathos to appeal to that audience. And the 
picture of the prince, " with his baby on his knee," 
is just the sort to appeal to the sentimental Dutch. 
I doubt, however, if the rest of the song applies to 
him. He certainly doesn't look " as happy as can 
be." 

The fondness of the Dutch for Wilhelmina is due 
partly to the fact that she is a nice, quiet, unimagina- 
tive huisvrouw, and so typical of what they would 
have all their women be, and partly to the fact that 
she and her baby are the last members of that House 
of Orange, of which the venerated " Father William " 
was the first and greatest. The Dutch feel that, as 
long as that line endures, the country owes it place 
and honour. But most Dutchmen will tell you that 
they don't really need a queen; they could get along 
just as well, and somewhat less expensively, without 
one; but so long as the queen is a nice girl and not 
too extravagant, and especially as long as she is a 
descendant of " Father William," no one objects. 
Most of them, I think, like to see her around, and 
she seldom does anything to annoy them. The real 
governing, of course, is done by the parliament, an 
elective body. 

It is in the Nieuwe Kerk, just across the square 
from the palace, that the Dutch rulers are crowned 
and take the oath to preserve the constitution of the 
country. Wilhelmina was crowned there in 1898/ 
and the event is commemorated in a great stained- 
glass window, decidedly more satisfying than such 



The Town on the Amstel 173 



windows usually are. When we went over to the 
New Church for the first time, a wedding was in 
progress. We tried to bribe the koster to admit us, 
but he shook his head almost tearfully; so we had 
to idle about the Dam for a time. Then we saw 
the wedding-party come out — the bride very tall and 
statuesque in white satin and a long veil: the groom 
hurried and embarrassed, as grooms always are; and 
one of the nicest-looking, white-haired, fresh-faced 
old clergymen I ever laid eyes orfr 7 When we entered, 
some of the guests were still sitting around in the 
side rooms sipping " bride's tears " wine and eating 
little cakes, and in the church itself a lot of men were 
busy clearing away the chairs and the wedding-carpet, 
which had been laid in the choir, between the screen 
and the spot where the altar once stood. 

The koster came to us and explained that he had 
not dared admit us because this was a wedding of 
the better class, costing twenty-five gulden. 

" If you were a Hollander/' he said, in broken 
English which I shall not attempt to indicate, " you 
could tell that by the carpet." 

"By the carpet?" 

"Oh, yes; for the cheap ceremony, which costs 
but five gulden, we use only a single strip; for ten 
gulden we use two strips; but for twenty-five gulden 
we use the large handsome carpet which you see 
yonder. We do not get it out very often," he added, 
with a sigh. 

He hurried away, after that, to speed his parting 



174 The Spell of Holland 

guests and to gather up any stray tips, leaving us to 
our own devices, with a printed description of the 
church, which he had given us when we bought our 
tickets. 

Like all the churches of Holland, this is new only 
by comparison with the old, for it was completed in 
1414, though it has been partially destroyed by fire 
and rebuilt two or three times since then. The prin- 
cipal show-piece is the tomb of Admiral de Ruyter, 
with the hero carved in marble, his head resting most 
uncomfortably upon a cannon, with a crowd of 
allegorical figures grouped about him, and the usual 
flamboyant epitaph engraved above. Various other 
naval heroes are also buried here and extravagantly 
commemorated — for when it came to building a 
monument to an admiral no expense was spared. 

The " Oude Kerk " is not far away, and is reached 
through a maze of tortuous and narrow streets, look- 
ing like rifts opened by an earthquake. It would be 
difficult to find but for its lofty tower, which rises 
far above the houses as a guide. It is really old, 
dating from 1300, and looks it, so weather-beaten and 
rain-worn it is, so gray and venerable. It is more 
impressive outside than in, and the thing that I re- 
member about it most distinctly is the beautiful and 
cozy little pastor's study, overlooking a quiet canal, 
in which we had to wait for a time. In a study 
like that, one ought to be able to write a book really 
worth while! 

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The Town on the Amstel 175 

which stands in the middle of the old Begijnenhof, 
of which I have spoken. You turn from the Kalver- 
straat down the Begijnen-Steeg, pass under an old 
gateway, and you are in a court surrounded by quaint 
old buildings, each with its screen of trees. The 
buildings are the home of the Roman Catholic Sisters 
of St. Begga, and the Mother Superior, if such is her 
proper title, will detail one of the sisters to show 
you some of the rooms — little white-washed cham- 
bers, with a narrow white bed guarded by a crucifix, 
and a curtained alcove for the sister's garments, a 
chair and a strip of carpet — and that is all. In the 
refectory, each sister has her little cupboard with her 
dishes in it, and she is expected to keep them clean, 
as well as attend to her own room. They all looked 
very tranquil and even happy — at least with a sweet 
serenity which must be very close to happiness. And 
in the middle of the court is a tiny white church, 
like a toy-church, almost; which was set apart, in 
1607, for the use of a community of Scotch weavers 
who had been persuaded to settle at Amsterdam. It 
has remained in the possession of the Scotch Presby- 
terians ever since, and English services are held there 
every Sunday. 

I should consider seeing the palace and these three 
churches a good day's work, and such time as is left 
may be well employed loitering about the streets. 
For there is a perpetual interest about Amsterdam's 
streets. Each seems to possess a character of its own, 
varying from the excitement of the ever-crowded 



176 The Spell of Holland 

Kalverstraat to the never-disturbed placidity of the 
old and aristocratic Heerengracht not far away. And 
the canals also have their peculiar character. They 
are not so crowded as the ones at Rotterdam, they 
seem to move more slowly, and those who do busi- 
ness on them are more deliberate, if such a thing is 
possible. 

Then there is the Jewish quarter, out near the 
Zoological garden. The best time to see it is Friday 
evening, when it is a real ghetto of the Middle Ages; 
but it is worth seeing at any time. There is nothing 
like it anywhere else in western Europe, for Am- 
sterdam has been a refuge for the Jews since the 
fourteenth century, and there are over seventy-five 
thousand of them there now. It was they who 
brought the art of diamond-polishing to Amsterdam, 
and they still very largely control the diamond trade. 
It is something of a shock to see a man who looks 
like a vagabond take a little package from his pocket, 
open it on a table, and coolly begin to turn over its 
sparkling contents with the nail of his little finger, 
which is left long like a tiny scoop. These are real 
Jews, the Jews of tradition, unchanged by contact 
with the Gentile. 

But for that matter, even on the Kalverstraat 
diamonds are handled with remarkable freedom. 
You enter a shop and ask to look at some, and the 
proprietor reaches under the counter and gets out 
an old cigar-box, and lifts the lid and discloses scores 
of little folded papers. He opens these, one after 



The Town on the Amstel 177 

the other, and in each of them is a pile of diamonds 
of various sizes. The cigar-box seems to be the 
accepted receptacle for the stock-in-trade in all the 
Amsterdam diamond shops. 

For dinner, don't stay at your hotel, however in- 
viting the menu. I never see travellers returning 
dutifully to their hotels for every meal but I mourn 
their wasted opportunities. The place to eat is in 
the restaurants where the natives, eat; and this is 
especially true of Amsterdam, tjo to a cafe on the 
Rembrandt Plein, or to one on the Kalverstraat, or 
to the great Cafe Krasnapolsky, and take two or three 
hours to the meal. It will probably be worth it; and 
the life, the movement, the types you will see are 
most interesting and diverting. I know that a good 
many travellers seem to think that the only things 
worth seeing in a country are its monuments; but to 
me, the monuments — and by these I mean the 
churches and palaces and museums — are of an in- 
terest quite secondary to that of the people themselves. 

Aside from the Cafe Krasnapolsky, with its mul- 
titudinous mirrors, the cafes of Amsterdam reach 
their culmination around the Rembrandt Plein. In 
summer, as evening advances, the chairs and tables 
from these cafes overflow the sidewalk into the street ; 
every chair is taken, and the waiters fly about with 
a frenzy of movement which threatens every instant 
to bring destruction to the glasses and dishes they 
carry, and which yet never does. There is a hum 
of talk, dying down as the orchestra plays a pia- 



178 The Spell of Holland 

nissimo passage in some popular favourite, and always 
leaping into a burst of applause when the music stops, 
for the Dutch are fond of music. Less-favoured 
passers-by stop to look at the scene; children hang 
about its outskirts, their fingers in their watering 
mouths; sometimes a beggar tries to ply his trade 
until a waiter appears and runs him off. 

The people are of all sorts — solid fathers with 
their wives and grown-up children, military men in 
full uniform, merchants come to celebrate the con- 
clusion of a bargain with a bottle of wine, betrothed 
couples who do nothing but smile at each other with- 
out knowing what they are eating, men-about-town 
dining the Dutch equivalent of the chorus girl — -all 
this goes on till far into the morning. 

Along the Kalverstraat, there are two or three 
dining-places of severe impeccability, with the win- 
dows curtained with lace and all their appointments 
severe and expensive. But most of the cafes there 
are of a cheaper and noisier class, with a table d'hote 
dinner early in the evening, and after that liqueurs 
and more liqueurs, over which the visitors sit for hours 
at a time. The seats near the windows are the 
favoured ones, for here one may look out at the 
crowded street, which is too narrow to permit chairs 
and tables on the sidewalks, and in which, after a 
certain hour of the evening, no vehicles are permitted. 

It was Erasmus of Rotterdam who made the famous 
jibe that his neighbours of Amsterdam dwelt in the 
tops of trees like rooks. They really dwell on the 



The Town on the Amstel 179 

bottoms of them, for the piles upon which every 
house is built are, of course, driven point down. I 
saw them making the foundation for such a house. 
A shallow hole had been dug in the black and oozy 
mud which underlies the city, and a pump was trying 
unsuccessfully to keep the water out of it, while a 
pile-driver was sinking a pile a foot at every blow. 
The piles are driven close together, so as to form a 
solid platform upon which the first timbers of the 
house are laid, and the action of the water is said, 
in time, to petrify the whole mass. 

Upon this foundation, the brick building is reared, 
the front and rear walls never being built until the 
roof is on, so that there may be a free passage of 
air to dry the side-walls, which support the roof's 
weight. Then the other walls are added and the 
interior is finished, not with plaster, but with canvas 
pasted to the bricks and the wall-paper pasted upon 
that, so that there is always an appearance of dry- 
ness. The canvas comes loose sometimes, and more 
than once, lying in bed, I have seen the whole wall 
apparently bulge towards me, as a current of air 
passed behind the canvas. But the dampness doesn't 
trouble the Dutch, who move in the moment the house 
is ready. Let me add, that it never troubled us, 
either, and we never felt the slightest ill-effects from it. 

The foundation of piles usually settles more or 
less unevenly, and the building is tilted forward or 
back at a dangerous-looking angle. But the Dutch 
know how to mix good mortar, and it never falls. 



180 The Spell of Holland 

The most expensive part of an Amsterdam building 
is its foundation. It is this, of course, which accounts 
for the fact that the houses are so narrow, since the 
foundation must be made as small as possible, and 
so high, since the foundation, once made, must be 
utilized to the uttermost. The narrowness of the 
houses means steep and narrow stairways, up which 
nothing bulky can be carried, so from the upper gable 
of every house a crane projects by means of which 
bulky articles are lifted through the windows. To 
go up a Dutch stair is a good deal like going up a 
ladder; in descending, one always has an impulse 
to turn around and come down backwards. 

The Zoological garden, or " Artis," as it is usually 
called, is worth a visit, for it is one of the best in 
Europe and very attractively laid out. Also the 
diamond-polishing works. Diamonds may be bought 
at Amsterdam at a price about one-third less than 
is charged here in America (but then there is the 
duty!), and any of the more prominent and old- 
established houses is quite trustworthy. Then there 
is the harbour, overlooked by the squat " Weepers' 
Tower," where the friends and relatives of departing 
mariners used to gather to watch them forth upon 
their desperate enterprise; and a great many other 
things of lesser note, which you will find in your 
guide-book. But the life of the streets, the bustling, 
ever-changing crowd, is for me the great attraction 
of Amsterdam. 



CHAPTER XIV 



A GLANCE AT DUTCH ART 



King Louis Bonaparte, it is true, disfigured 
Amsterdam's town-hall by cutting up its beautiful 
galleries with partitions of imitation marble; but, on 
the other side of the balance, it should be remembered 
that, in 1808, he issued a royal decree establishing a 
National Collection of Dutch art, which has since 
grown into one of the greatest in the world. He 
may not have been wholly disinterested in this, for 
the decree was the only contribution he made to the 
collection, and, until his deposition, he kept the pic- 
tures thus assembled on the walls of his own palace; 
but at least the coalescing word was his, and the 
collection has steadily grown in interest and impor- 
tance from that day to this. It is especially rich in 
the work of the Dutch artists of the seventeenth cen- 
tury — so rich, indeed, that these artists, with the 
exception of Frans Hals, can be studied nowhere 
else. 

The Dutch art of the seventeenth century is an 
amazing thing, for it sprang into the world full- 
grown, and, at the end of the century, died as sud- 
denly. It was, apparently, not the result of tradition 
or training; there were no " painter families/' Rem- 

31 



182 The Spell of Holland 

brandt's father was a miller, Hals's father was a 
merchant, Jan Steen's father was a brewer, de Hooch's 
father was a butcher, Gerard Dou's father was a 
glazier, Ruisdaers father was a maker of picture- 
frames. Where did these men get their technique? 
Where did they get their insight? Above all, how 
did it happen that they were all born within the 
same half-century? Was genius in the air? 

We ask the same question concerning the Eliza- 
bethan age, and are at the same loss for an answer; 
and this great era of Dutch art was contemporary, 
in its beginning, with the reign of Elizabeth. Some 
mighty force was plainly, at that time, astir in the 
world. 

But Dutch art is more amazing than Elizabethan 
literature because the latter had a tradition to build 
on, whereas the former made a tradition for itself. 
Art, up to that time, had been a thing of saints and 
madonnas; the Dutch made it a thing of e very-day 
life — an art for the home and fireside, not for the 
church. These men set themselves to paint, not 
miracles and scenes of martyrdom and mystery, but 
the people and the things they saw about them every 
day — honest burghers, sun-lit interiors, crowded tap- 
rooms, the kermess, the quack doctor, the itinerant 
fiddler, the broad Dutch landscape, the cool vistas of 
Dutch churches. And they did it supremely well. 

An acquaintance with Dutch life is necessary to 
the fullest appreciation of Dutch art; above all an 
acceptance of the theory, which is as true of literature 



A Glance at Dutch Art 183 

as of art, that no subject is in itself unworthy, that 
insight and truth of handling dignify any theme. 
Without this understanding, a great portion of Dutch 
art must seem trivial, if not absolutely offensive; 
with it, a visit to the Rijks is a thing of delight — 
a thing to be repeated many times; and in every 
gallery the Dutch pictures will be eagerly sought and 
lingered over. It is something that grows upon one, 
that begins with indifference, if not with actual dis- 
like, and ends in the liveliest pleasure. 

A great picture, like a great novel, is a thing of 
insight and imagination. But we have come pretty 
generally to agree that the greatest fiction is not that 
which is a mere flight of fancy, however exalted, but 
that which gives a significant grouping to the facts 
of human nature. If great art may be defined in 
the same way, and I am inclined to think that it may, 
then Dutch art is the greatest in the world. 

The ground floor at the Rijks is occupied by a col- 
lection of Dutch industrial art, which brings before 
the eye the interiors of the houses of three hundred 
years ago; a splendid collection, full of beautiful 
things, which one must, by all means, see. The paint- 
ings are on the floor above; and one makes naturally, 
at once, for the little addition at the end of the Gal- 
lery of Honour where the great Rembrandts are 
housed. The "Night Watch " used to hang at the 
end of this gallery, and, I am inclined to think, was 
more at home there than in the little room where it 
is now, however scientifically lighted. In its present 



184 The Spell of Holland 

position, one cannot get more than fifteen feet away 
from it — not far enough to see it all at once. It 
is a wonderful picture — how trite it seems to say 
so, or to attempt to describe it! 

Yet for me it has not the fascination of the 
" Syndics," which hangs in another little room ad- 
joining — surely the apotheosis of portrait-painting, 
alive if ever a picture was alive. I am quite unable 
to explain the fascination of those six faces, looking 
up as though interrupted by the visitor's entrance. 
They are all handsome faces; but the one I like best 
is the second from the right end, so vigourous and 
full of life and the love of living. 

And after looking at the " Syndics," I like to walk 
over to the Van de Poll room to see again that other 
masterpiece by Rembrandt, the portrait of Elizabeth 
Bas, the very embodiment of that precise, narrow- 
minded and no doubt high-tempered old widow. I 
love to look at her, sitting there with her hands folded, 
as though listening to a bit of gossip; at least, there 
is a supercilious something about the lips which gives 
that impression. Perhaps Rembrandt so regaled her 
as he wielded his brush. And the detail of the paint- 
ing is a marvel — the ruff alone is a thing to won- 
der at. 

After this portrait, I think I like best that touching 
genre by Rembrandt's greatest pupil, Nicholas Maes, 
" The Endless Prayer." The cat clutching at the 
table-cloth has always seemed to me somehow out of 
drawing, though this may be only the result of its 



A Glance at Dutch Art 185 

attitude; but the remainder of the picture is all that 
could be desired. Scarcely, if at all, inferior to it is 
that other work of the same artist, " Old Woman Spin- 
ning." In both of them a use is made of shadow 
quite worthy of Rembrandt himself. 

And after these comes Jan Vermeer's " De Keuken- 
meid," or " The Milkmaid," as it is sometimes called 
(No. 2528a), of which I have already spoken in the 
chapter on Delft, and which I never tire of looking 
at. And after this, Frans HalsV' Jolly Toper " (No. 
1091), with his hand raised as he tells a story or 
sings a song whose character is not difficult to imagine. 
And after this — well, I scarcely know. There is 
that delicious interior by Adriaen van Ostade, showing 
a group of peasants before a hooded fire-place, smoking 
and talking, and another group, in the background, 
sitting about a table before a window with leaded 
panes; there is Ruisdael's view of Haarlem, with the 
enormous mass of the Groote Kerk towering above 
the other buildings; there is that jolly portrait by 
Frans Hals of himself and his wife, Frans laughing 
right out of the canvas, and his lady smiling a little 
sheepishly at being caught in so loving a posture; 
there is Gerard Terborch's " The Visit," or " Paren- 
tal Advice," as Goethe named it, with the standing 
female figure marvelously done; and there is that 
charming picture by Pieter de Hooch, " The Buttery," 
with its characteristic open door and tiled pavement, 
a darling thing which one would love to have always 
hanging on one's wall ; and there is Jan Steen's amu- 



186 The Spell of Holland 

sing " Feast of St. Nicholas/' with the bad boy whim- 
pering because his only present is a bundle of switches, 
while the good children have toys galore. Look at the 
profile of the old woman in the foreground. You 
will see it again and again in Steen's pictures. And 
there is, too, perhaps the most finished picture that 
Steen ever painted, " The Doctor's Visit," so per- 
fectly done that you can fancy the painter thinking, 
" These other fellows say my work is coarse and rough, 
that I can't paint any other way. Well, I will show 
them!" And he did! 

And then — there are all the other pictures! But 
the ones I have mentioned above, I hope you will look 
at especially, for they are so representative of the best 
in Dutch art. After that you will have time enough 
to see the huge corporation pieces, and the pictures 
of dead game and still life, and the Dutch attempts 
at Biblical pictures. " Susannah and the Elders " was 
a subject which appealed to all of them, and which 
most of them had a try at ; but for the rest, I cannot 
fancy Dutch madonnas and Dutch saints. Please 
understand that all this is merely an expression of 
personal opinion, without authority of any kind. But 
I am sure, when you come to look at these pictures 
of Dutch life understanding^, you will find yourself 
getting from them an ever-increasing delight. They 
are the best cure for the blues I know. 

As I have said, Dutch art dropped dead at the end 
of the seventeenth century. Its death is as surprising 



A Glance at Dutch Art 187 

as its birth. One would have supposed that such a 
band of great artists as the middle of the century 
saw in Holland would have handed on the tradition 
to pupils who would attain an art ever finer and more 
fine. But it was not so. The masters died — and 
there were none to follow. It was as though their 
mighty genius had exhausted the air; there was no 
oxygen left in it. So Dutch art became moribund, 
asphyxiated, and a century and a half elapsed before 
it began to rub its eyes again. 

And yet those old Dutch painters were undoubtedly 
the pioneers of modern art. Painters to-day are trying 
to do what Jan Vermeer did two centuries and a 
half ago — to envelope a picture in natural light, to 
fill a room with air, as nature fills it ; to " get the 
values right." That is the hardest thing of all to do. 
As you may see for yourself if you will remember how 
many pictures look as though they were painted in a 
vacuum ! 

About fifty years ago, Dutch art began to re-awaken, 
and to-day there are half a dozen Dutch painters whose 
work has real significance. They are well repre- 
sented at the Municipal Museum at Amsterdam, and 
their pictures are well worth seeing. Josef Israels, 
with his tender studies of peasant life, perhaps at times 
a trifle too sentimental; Anton Mauve, with his land- 
scapes and sheep ; H. W. Mesdag, with his marines — 
these are three of the names worth looking for. 
They may be seen at their best at the Municipal 
Museum. 



188 The Spell of Holland 

First there is a charming marine by Mesdag (No. 
110), with sea and sky splendidly done; then there 
is Mauve's "Sheep on the Dunes" (No. 108), per- 
haps his most famous painting; and there are no 
less than ten examples of the work of Israels. And I 
must not forget to mention Blommers's " Little Fisher- 
men " (No. 20), all pervaded with sunlight as it is; 
and Meyer's "Rescue" (No. 114a), with its trans- 
lucent water. 

We did not get to see the collection of works by 
the Barbizon school which the museum possesses, as 
the room in which they are housed was being done 
over when we were there. But the national pub- 
lishers' exhibition was in progress, and we lingered 
for a long time examining the products of Dutch 
presses, and some of the most beautiful bindings I 
have seen anywhere. 

There are two other collections of paintings at 
Amsterdam, the Museum Fodor, which seems to me 
scarcely worth a visit, and the collection of Baron Six, 
whose principal treasure is the portrait of the baron by 
Rembrandt; but it is only occasionally accessible to 
strangers, as it is lodged in the old Six mansion. But 
so long as the Rijks is open every day, one need 
scarcely trouble with less important collections. 

I realize how inadequate this chapter is. I wish I 
could make it better. I wish I could make those won- 
derful pictures live for you as they have come to live 
for me. But there is only one way in which that can 
be done — you must see thetn for yourself, if you 



A Glance at Dutch Art 189 

have not already seen them. And when you enter 
the Rijks for the first time, and give your umbrella 
to the attendant, and mount the great staircase, how 
I shall envy you ! 



! 






CHAPTER XV 

THE HUT OF PETER THE GREAT 

I am inclined to think, sometimes, that most guide- 
books are written from hearsay, and that most travel- 
books are written from guide-books. To go one step 
further back, I suspect that the hearsay is provided 
by the professional guides who infest every European 
city, and whose motives are far from disinterested. 
I do not understand how else it could happen that 
one is urged to visit so many places that are not worth 
visiting, and discouraged from visiting so many places 
that are. Perhaps it is some idiosyncrasy of my own, 
but in other respects I seem to be fairly normal. 

At any rate, the guide-books and travel-books — 
and, I doubt not, the professional guides, though with 
these I have no experience — describe Zaandam as a 
most picturesque place, remarkable for its brightly- 
painted houses, its multitudinous windmills, and dwell 
at length upon the curious historical interest attached 
to the hut of Peter the Great. Even old Baedeker 
goes out of his way to tout Zaandam. Well — but 
you shall see ! 

Let me first relate the legend which connects the 
great Czar with this Dutch village. The story goes 
that, in 1697, the Czar, having conquered the Turks 

190 



The Hut of Peter the Great 191 

and the Tartars and having his own dominions well 
in hand, decided to make a tour of the states of wes- 
tern Europe in order to study their arts and industries. 
Accompanied by fifty guards, four secretaries, twelve 
gentlemen in waiting, three ambassadors, five interpre- 
ters and one dwarf, he made his way leisurely through 
Livonia and Pomerania to Berlin, where he stopped 
for a while, and then came on to Amsterdam ahead of 
his suite, which had been detained in Westphalia. At 
Amsterdam no one knew him, so he passed some days 
in the government arsenals there; and then, donning 
the garb of a sailor, proceeded to Zaandam, where the 
most famous shipbuilding yards of Holland were 
situated. 

Arrived at Zaandam, he secured employment as a 
carpenter in the ship-building yard of one Mijnheer 
Kalf, under the name of Peter Michaelof. But, 
whether from the natural majesty of his manner, or 
from some word incautiously dropped, the Zaandamers 
soon penetrated his disguise, and so annoyed him by 
crowding around to stare at him, that, at the end of 
a week, he returned in a huff to Amsterdam, where 
his distracted suite was searching for him. I would 
only remark one thing : — he didn't need to be a czar 
to cause the Zaandamers to stare at him. The mere 
fact that he was not a Dutchman would be sufficient. 

So, one bright July morning, we set forth duti- 
fully to see the red and green houses, the windmills, 
and the hut of Peter the Great. We proceeded leisurely 
down the Damrak to the Stationsplein, and there 



192 The Spell of Holland 

inquired of the first policeman we saw for the boat 
to Zaandam. Let me explain that in Holland trains 
and trams and boats tread on each other's heels, so 
to speak, and we had fallen into the reprehensible 
habit of paying no attention to time-tables, nor trying 
to catch any particular train or boat, but just ambled 
along to the starting-place, whenever we found it con- 
venient. And hitherto it had been our good luck to 
find a train or boat waiting, apparently, only for our 
arrival, and which started off as soon as we climbed 
on board. This, as may easily be seen, was very pleas- 
ant; but every pitcher goes to the well too often. 
Ours was smashed three times that day ! 

The first fracture was due, really, to the muckle- 
headed policeman of whom we asked the way to the 
Zaandam boat — and, now that I think of it, the other 
two followed as a consequence of this one! He made 
no effort to understand, but, taking it for granted that, 
like all other tourists, we wanted to go to Marken, 
he directed us to the stage for that boat. We were 
sure, of course, it was the right one, because it was 
just ready to cast off; what made us suspicious was 
the fact that it was crowded with a Cook's party, as 
our path and Cook's rarely coincided ; and by the time 
we had discovered the truth, and clambered off, and got 
around to the other side of the station, we found that 
the boat for Zaandam had got tired of waiting for us, 
and had cast off, and was just steaming out of the 
dock 

However, there was another one there whicn would 



The Hut of Peter the Great 193 

start in half an hour, so we went on board with no 
great vexation of spirit — all unconscious as we were 
of impending calamities ! — for one can always spend 
a half hour most profitably and pleasantly watching 
the busy life of the quays. It is on the quays that 
Dutch life reaches its apogee, where it is liveliest and 
most full of colour. Next to the quays come the mar- 
ket-places — the quays for the men, the market-places 
for the women. So we sat down in the lee of the cabin, 
for there was a lively wind blowing, and watched the 
arrivals and departures, the passers-by and lookers-on, 
each going somewhere with some purpose, the purpose, 
of course, being, in its last reduction, the earning of 
a livelihood. Almost before we knew it, the half 
hour had passed, the bell clanged, and we cast off, 
backed out, and headed up the Zaan. 

It is a busy river, though too wide to be as interesting 
as a canal, where one gets into intimate touch with 
the people along both banks; to say nothing of the 
fact that the little trekschuits are more picturesque 
and home-like and their crews less sophisticated than 
could be hoped for on this large boat. But there were 
nice little painted houses back a bit in the country, 
along winding roads, and the sails of many windmills 
beckoning in the distance ; so we were happy and 
content, confident that we would add at least two 
interesting pictures to our collection of photographs — 
one of a line of windmills standing like sentinels along 
the river, and the other of the picturesque hut of 
Peter the Great. 



194 The Spell of Holland 

Zaandam was soon in sight, and proved, as we ap- 
proached it, to be much larger and more modern than 
we had expected. We looked in vain for the quaint, 
brightly-painted wooden houses; for the houses were 
of brick, and anything but quaint. In fact, as we 
soon found out, the principal streets do not differ 
greatly in appearance from the streets of an American 
town, and the shops might almost be mistaken for 
American shops, but for the involved signs over them. 
The Dutch language resembles the German in one 
respect — three or four words are being constantly 
put together to form one; and a shop-keeper seems 
to pride himself upon his ability to describe in one 
word all the things he has to sell. It is a never-ending 
source of delight to dissect these compounds and dis- 
cover their meanings. I am told that the Dutch word 
for motor-car is snelpaardelooszoondeerspoorwegpit- 
roolrijtung, which means a rapid horseless vehicle 
without rails driven by petroleum. I have never 
myself had the pleasure of encountering this word, 
and I am inclined to suspect that, as the motor-car has 
become more common in Holland, a shorter name 
for it has been adopted to save time — perhaps the 
first and last syllables of the above — but I do not 
find it in my dictionary. 

As we drew up to the quay, we saw quite a crowd 
of people assembled there, and supposed naturally that 
they were waiting to take the boat back to Amsterdam. 
But we found, the instant we set foot on land, that 
they were waiting, not for the boat, but for us. They 



The Hut of Peter the Great 195 

all desired the privilege of conducting us to the hut 
of Peter the Great. 

" Pieter de Groot ! Pieter de Groot ! " they shouted 
in chorus; boys attempted to catch our hands, old 
men tapped us invitingly with canes, old women 
beckoned. It was as though we were about to attempt 
some desperate enterprise, such as climbing the Jung- 
frau, for which the services of an experienced and in- 
trepid guide were an absolute necessity. 

Now, I have an aversion to guides, especially dirty 
ones; besides, my eye happened to fall upon a sign 
at the end of the pier, with an arrow pointing the way 
to the place we were seeking; so we shook our heads, 
and said " Neen, neen ! " and fought our way through, 
and made off down the street. I have since puzzled 
considerably over how that sign came to be placed 
there, for it must interfere seriously with one of Zaan- 
dam's principal industries — the guiding of visitors 
to the hut of Peter the Great — an industry which 
gives employment, in summer, at least, to a consider- 
able number of people, and in which any Zaandamer, 
as we presently found, was willing, for a small con- 
sideration, instantly to engage. 

We loitered along, after we had shaken off the 
crowd, looking at the people and the shops, and 
occasionally refusing an offer to be taken to the hut 
of Peter the Great, secure in the consciousness that 
we were following the direction indicated by the arrow. 
It led us along a narrow, cobbled lane, past the town- 
hall, across a lock-gate with a little iron railing on 



196 The Spell of Holland 

either side to keep one from falling off, through an 
alley, and finally into a long and uninteresting street. 

" I don't see any sign of the hut of Peter the Great/' 
I said. " Perhaps we had better make some in- 
quiries." 

So we went into a shop and bought some post-cards, 
but when we tried to ask the way to the hut of Peter 
the Great, we found that Zaandam is one of the few 
Dutch towns where English is not spoken. With the 
aid of my dictionary I contrived to make myself 
understood fairly well, but we were utterly unable 
to comprehend the voluble and complicated directions 
so earnestly given us. It reminded me of the days 
when I was a boy and was studying telegraphy: I 
never had any difficulty sending a message, however 
much difficulty the other fellow had in taking it, but 
when it came my turn to receive, I was lost ! 

However, one can always point, and we inferred, 
at last, from emphatic gestures, that we had over- 
shot the mark and must go back the way we had 
come. 

So we went back across the lock-gate, and past the 
town-hall, and here we came upon a policeman, stand- 
ing against the wall in the sun and dozing peacefully. 
We woke him gently and stated our difficulty. He 
knew at once where we wanted to go — we found out 
afterwards that there isn't any place else to go in 
Zaandam, so perhaps my Dutch wasn't as good as I 
thought it was ! — and he also directed us with much 
detail, and pointed. 



The Hut of Peter the Great 197 

Now pointing is all right when it is done in a 
straight line, but it has its limitations when it comes to 
indicating three or four turns. However, we gathered 
the general direction, and followed it for some time, 
without seeing anything that looked like the hut of 
Peter the Great. From time to time, a passer-by would 
stop and ask us if he might not conduct us to the hut 
of Peter the Great, one of the things at Zaandam which 
every visitor wished to see ; but I sternly said no, for 
I was determined to find the hut of Peter the Great 
unaided. 

If Betty hadn't been along, I should probably still 
be walking about Zaandam looking for the hut of 
Peter the Great; but she finally protested that she 
had had all the foot-exercise she cared for that morn- 
ing, and annexed a wooden-shoed urchin who was 
hovering in the offing, showed him a stuiver, and 
pronounced the magic words : 

" Pieter de Groot." 

He nodded his head, his eyes glistening, and 
promptly descended some steps, turned down a nar- 
row little alley, crossed a hipped foot-bridge over a 
dirty little canal, led the way along a dirty little street, 
and stopped before a tall iron railing, behind which 
was apparently a new brick church. I told him we 
were not interested in new brick churches; that we 
could see plenty of them back in America, and 
again desired him to lead us to the hut of Peter the 
Great. 

He refused to budge, but demanded that we pull 



198 The Spell of Holland 

at a bell which hung before the gate ; also that we give 
him the stuiver. At least, I judged this to be the 
substance of his excited remarks. 

By this time, a large and curious crowd had 
gathered, and was watching our proceedings with 
intent interest, commenting on our clothing and per- 
sonal appearance, which evidently did not impress 
them favourably. So we gave the boy the stuiver 
and pulled the bell, and presently a little old woman 
came and peeped out cautiously, from which I judged 
that the boys of the neighbourhood were in the habit 
of taking a yank at the bell as they passed. But when 
she saw Betty and me, she hastened to open the gate 
and invite us in. 

We told her how sorry we were to disturb her; 
that a thick-headed boy had brought us here, and 
insisted we ring the bell; that we would go out again 
in a minute, as soon as the crowd outside had dis- 
persed; that we were hunting the hut of Peter the 
Great — 

" Ja," she interrupted, her eyes gleaming with com- 
prehension for the first time, " dit is het," and she 
pointed toward the new brick chapel. 

I looked her squarely in the eye and repeated that 
we were looking for the hut in which Peter the Great, 
Czar of Russia, had lived during his visit to Zaandam, 
something over three hundred years before. 

"Ja, ja — dit is het!" she repeated; so we gave 
it up, and entered the chapel — and found that she was 
right. 



The Hut of Peter the Great 199 

For the new brick chapel is merely the shell which 
Czar Nicholas built a. few years ago to protect the 
alleged stopping-place of his distinguished prede- 
cessor upon the throne of Russia. It was a wooden 
shack of two rooms, and had broken in two in the 
middle, and was rapidly disintegrating, when Nicho- 
las came to the rescue and sent an engineer to the 
scene, who, by an elaborate system of bolts and braces 
and a new foundation, has managed to hold the rem- 
nants together. Then a brick h<5t(se was built around 
it, and there you are. 

There are, perhaps, some people who like to look 
at broken-backed hovels bricked in to keep out the 
weather, but a very few minutes sufficed us. There 
are only two rooms in the house, with a few pieces 
of old furniture and a cupboard-bed built into the wall, 
after the fashion of the Dutch. There is also a fire- 
place said to be interesting, I know not why; and an 
ikon brought by one of the Grand Dukes, and a tablet 
set up by another to commemorate his visit, and a 
motto on the wall, placed there by a third, reading, 
" Neits is den grooten man te klein," which means, 
" Nothing is too small for a great man," a sentiment 
supposed to have been uttered by the Great Peter. 
There are a few other memorials of High Mighti- 
nesses who have visited the place, and a book in which 
to write your name; and that is all, except the tip to 
the caretaker. 

The plot of ground upon which the house stands 
was bought by Nicholas, so that it is now Russian 



200 The Spell of Holland 

territory, supervised by the Russian consul. It is the 
only spot in Holland so sacred that no one may smoke 
there, and a little rack is provided outside the gate 
in which to deposit your cigar before entering, the 
same to be resumed when you come out. The rack 
was empty that day, and I speculated as to whether 
a cigar left there would be safe from passing urchins; 
if I was a boy and lived in that neighbourhood, I am 
sure I should regard that rack as a legitimate source 
of supply. I am sorry now that I did not experiment 
to find out. 

As we made our way back along the little street, 
and over the little bridge, and through the little alley 
and up the narrow steps, I determined to start a 
subscription to erect suitable and explicit signboards 
all along the route, giving instructions in every lan- 
guage how to reach the hut of Peter the Great. I 
saw myself a benefactor of nations, decorated by 
their rulers, thanked by their learned societies; but 
subsequent reflection has caused me to change my 
mind. For what is the use to point the way to a 
thing that is not worth seeing? 

The exertions of the morning had made us both 
hungry, so we stopped at a little corner restaurant, 
and sat down at a table on the sidewalk and had some- 
thing to eat. I noticed that the waiter was walking up 
and down with his eye on us, and a perplexed look 
on his face, and supposed that it was merely anxiety 
about his tip ; but when he saw that we were ready to 
depart, he came forward. 



The Hut of Peter the Great 201 

'" Pardon, mijnheer," he said, in a jumble of French, 
Dutch and English; " has mijnheer de huis van 
Pieter de Groot besoeken? " 

" Pieter de Groot ! " I echoed, staring at him. 
"What is that?" 

■■ Pieter de Groot! " he repeated, waving his hands. 
" De Czar of Russie — he lif here ! " 

" The Czar of Russia! " I cried, remembering Mark 
Twain, and warming to the work./ " He lives here — 
in this house ! " 

" Neen, neen! Not in dis huis, mijnheer; but near 
— ver' near. I vill mijnheer conduct," and he began 
hastily to take off his apron. 

Wait," I said. " Is he at home? " 

At home?" 

Yes. Is he at home? Will he receive us? " 

He stared at me for an instant without understand- 
ing — then a light broke. 

" Oh, mijnheer," he protested. " He hass died free 
hondred year." 

" But you said he lived here ! " 

" Ja, mijnheer, t'ree hondred year already; but his 
huis is ver' near; I vill mijnheer conduct." 

"Wait," I said again. "What else is there to see 
in Zaandam? " 

" Wat else, mijnheer? " 

" Ja — wat else. Is there nothing but the hut of 
Pieter de Groot?" 

" Neen, mijnheer," and he shook his head. " Dat 
is al." 



202 The Spell of Holland 

" Then," I said, " we will not wait. We will go 
on at once to Zandijk." 

" To Zandijk ! But de huis of Pieter de Groot ! " 

" We do not care to see it," I said. " Which is the 
way to Zandijk? " 

Unable to speak, he pointed down the street which 
parallelled the river, and stood staring after us until 
a turn hid us from sight. 

" There ! " I said. " That's what I came to Europe 
for. That's what I've longed to do ever since I read 
Innocents Abroad ! " 

" Yes," Betty agreed with a lack of enthusiasm 
that surprised me. " But what's at Zandijk? " 

" Windmills, my dear ! " I cried. " Hundreds of 
windmills. It's their breeding-place; there are big 
ones and little ones; they stand all along the river, 
so close together that their sails get tangled sometimes. 
Oh, we'll get a beautiful picture! " 

" Do we have to walk? " 

" It looks like it," I admitted. " There's no tram. 
It can't be very far, or there'd be a tram. Besides, 
Baedeker says — " 

We fought our way against a stiff head-wind, along 
a dirty paved street, with ugly modern brick houses 
on both sides of it, and factories and breweries, and a 
badly-smelling ditch now and then, fondly imagining 
that at every turn we should emerge upon a windmill- 
bordered canal. But we never did. Once in a while 
we got a glimpse of the river back of the houses, and 
once we tried to get across by meane of a railway 



The Hut of Peter the Great 203 

bridge, in spite of the " Verboden Toegang " sign, 
only to be informed that that was not the way to 
Zandijk. And after we had walked along that never- 
ending street for about two hours, I began to have 
misgivings, and stopped at a store and asked the way 
to Zandijk. 

" Zandijk !" repeated the girl behind the counter, 
staring at us as though we were crazy. " Dit is het! ' 

" This, Zandijk !" I exclaimed. " Maar waar 
is der wind-molen?' I went on, with the aid of 
my dictionary, in what was doubtless execrable 
Dutch. 

It was at this moment I discovered that my diction- 
ary failed to give the word for windmill. I have never 
been able to understand it, but so it is. That a Dutch 
dictionary should omit " sky-scraper " and " subway " 
does not surprise me, but windmill! 

" Wind-molen ! " said the girl, and threw up her 
hands and explained. I gathered, at the end of quite 
a conversation, that steam was supplanting wind as 
the motive power for the Zandijk mills, and that their 
glory had departed. 

" Well," I said to Betty, carefully avoiding her eye, 
and speaking with a jocularity I was far from feeling, 
" it seems we are fooled again. I guess we might 
as well go back." 

" The same way? " Betty inquired, sweetly. 

" No," I said, " we can't walk back ten mites along 
that infernal street. I'll see what can be done." 

At the end of some further conversation, I learned 



204 The Spell of Holland 

that there was a " stoom-boot " landing just above, 
where the Alkmaar packet touched, and we hastened 
thither, finding it with some difficulty, for it, also, was 
down a dirty little lane. 

" Boot naar Zaandam? " I said to an old man who 
was coiling a rope on the pier-head. 

For answer, he pointed down the stream, and there, 
not two hundred feet away, was the Alkmaar packet, 
just gathering headway. Again I avoided Betty's 
eye, as we sank down in despair upon a bench. The 
despair deepened when we learned that there would 
be no other boat to Zaandam for two hours. 

To remain there for two hours was unthinkable; 
and I bestirred myself; but there was no tram, no 
carriage, no public conveyance of any kind. After 
an interval, it occurred to me that there might be a 
railway. 

" Ja," there was a " spoor-weg," but it was half 
a mile away. We finally found it; only to see a 
train pull in, stop, and puff away just before we got 
there. There would be no other train for an hour. 
So I left Betty in the waiting-room to rest and went 
out to inspect something interesting which I had dis- 
covered close by. 

Reader, you will never guess what it was. It was 
a cemetery — the first I had seen in Holland ; and now, 
that I look back at it, it seems peculiarly appropriate 
that I should have found it at just that time! We 
had been in Holland some weeks, we had seen village 
after village, we had ridden back and forth through 



The Hut of Peter the Great 205 

the country on boat and train and tram, but, at last, 
it occurred to us that we had never seen a cemetery. 
After that, we looked for one — in vain. Finally, 
I asked the head-waiter at the hotel at Haarlem what 
happened to people when they died in Holland — did 
they dry up and blow away, or what ? 

" Oh, no, sir," he answered, looking somewhat 
scandalized. " You will see the funerals pass this 
door each morning at ten o'clock. "j 

"I've seen funerals,'' I said; "one anyway. But 
I've never seen a graveyard. I'd begun to think there 
weren't any." 

" Oh, yes, sir," he answered me solemnly, " there 
are graveyards." But he vouchsafed no further in- 
formation. 

So the mystery continued; but it was solved at 
Zandijk. I should never have suspected the place 
was a graveyard, but for the funeral standing at the 
gate. I watched the pall-bearers, in their queer cos- 
tumes, shoulder the coffin; then two men got out of 
the single carriage and followed them through the 
gate, and I ventured to peep in. The place was 
surrounded by a thick hedge, and the gravestones 
were lying flat on the ground, so that no glimpse 
of them was visible above the hedge. Artificial 
flowers in glass cases seemed the prevailing form of 
decoration. Outside the hedge was a little canal, 
effectually keeping away intruders. And while I was 
standing there, I saw something else which helped 
to render the memory of that day unpleasant. 



206 The Spell of Holland 

I have referred more than once to the fact that in 
Holland dogs are very generally used to help pull the 
little carts in which most of the land commerce is 
carried on. They are hitched to milk- wagons and vege- 
table-carts, and all sorts of vehicles; but rarely have I 
seen one which seemed overloaded or overworked. 
They are usually happy and vivacious, with plenty of 
wind to bark with. But, as I stood there by the gate, a 
cart came along in which two men were riding and 
which a single dog was pulling, urged forward by a 
lash. He was not a large dog, either, and his red 
eyes were rimmed with dust, and his black tongue 
was hanging from his mouth, as he struggled for 
breath. As I went back to the station, I came 
upon the dog hitched beside a gate. He was 
standing with his head down, still panting desper- 
ately, and the pavement under him was wet with 
saliva. 

I don't know why it is that one hates to see a dog 
mistreated, more than any other animal; perhaps 
because the dog has proved himself so faithful and 
affectionate; but the shadow of that incident clouded 
the remainder of the day. 

The train came along presently, and we bought 
tickets clear through to Amsterdam. I still have the 
return-tickets on the steamboat They cost twelve 
and a half cents Dutch, and it annoys me yet that I 
didn't get to use them. 

Let me add that, to pronounce Zaandam correctly,, 
one must accent the last syllable. 



The Hut of Peter the Great 207 

" Betty," I said, that evening after dinner, " I 
think we'd better go over to the Kalverstraat and get 
that brooch you were looking at yesterday." 

" I think so too," said Betty; and we went. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE CITY OF RIPENED CURDS 

Edam cheese no longer comes from Edam; in this 
respect the name is as misleading as that of Greek 
fire or Roman candles. And, indeed, the glory that 
was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome have 
not more certainly departed from this earth than has 
the red blood of commerce from the arteries of that 
little dead Dutch village, lying a mile or two back 
from the Zuyder Zee, shrunk to less than one-fifth 
its former size, and with scarcely a shadow of its 
former splendour. 

The centre of the North Holland cheese trade has 
passed, by some mysterious jugglery of fate, to another 
little town, not many miles away — Alkmaar — " the 
extreme verge of habitable earth," as Motley calls it, 
where, nearly three hundred and fifty years ago, " the 
spirit of Holland's freedom stood at bay ,: against 
the Spaniards — and was not conquered ! 

The name of the town is a significant one, for 
Alkmaar means " all sea." But it is not nearly so 
wet as it used to be; for the morass which at one 
time extended for miles around it, has been drained 
and converted into rich farmland, and the numerous 

208 



The City of Ripened Curds 209 

lakes have been narrowed to canals, so that the little 
town looks quite dry and inland — for Holland. 

There are two ways of getting there from Amster- 
dam — the most picturesque, as always, being by 
water, and the speediest by rail. If you go by boat, 
you will see, above Zaandam, the windmills which 
have survived the introduction of steam, and from 
a distance there seems to be such a lot of them that 
I am rather inclined to suspect tjhe veracity of that 
girl at Zandijk; you will cross S^hat remains of Alk- 
maar Meer, and then, entering the North Holland 
canal, will skirt the Beemster, once the bottom of a 
lake, now a rich polder, laid out, as all polders are, 
with rule and line, so that its regular field3 of grain 
or hay look like the squares of a chess-board; you 
will see how the canals are all higher than the land, 
and remembering how the North Sea is held back 
a few miles to the west by a line of dunes, and the 
Zuyder Zee a few miles to the east by a line of dykes, 
you will understand why it was that the Spanish army 
besieging Alkmaar, learning that William of Orange 
was preparing to cut these dykes, fled in haste for 
their lives. For the waters of both North Sea and 
South Sea are many feet above the level of this frail 
peninsula, lying in a hollow between them. 

The journey by train presents less of interest. The 
country near Amsterdam seems even flatter than else- 
where in Holland, if such a thing were possible, the 
effect, I suppose, being due to the fact that the rail- 
way runs so high above it. The fields are beautifully 



210 The Spell of Holland 

laid out and most carefully cultivated, and there are 
long rows of trees in the semi-distance, marking the 
course of a road or canal, and groups of character- 
istic red-tiled houses, and always and everywhere the 
great black-and-white cows grazing in the pastures. 
One changes cars at Uitgeest, and from there on the 
train is apt to be crowded. By whichever way you go 
the day for the excursion is always Friday, and one 
should arrive at Alkmaar not later than half -past 
nine. 

It was just after nine o'clock of a bright Friday 
morning in early July that Betty and I reached 
Alkmaar, and, to get to the market-place, had only 
to follow the crowd. For on Friday, Alkmaar lives, 
breathes, and has its being in cheese. On the out- 
skirts of the market, we passed between rows of high- 
beamed wagons, varnished to a mirror-like surface 
on the outside and painted a bright blue inside; some 
showing the grain of the natural wood; others painted 
black or brown and decorated with garlands of flowers 
in white and red and gold. It was in these wagons 
that the cheese had been brought to the market from 
the neighbouring farms, and many of them were not 
yet unloaded. 

A moment later we came out upon the market- 
place and saw a sight such as is to be seen nowhere 
else in the world. The market-place is nearly square 
in shape, and I should guess it to be a little less than 
three hundred feet each way. Along one side runs 
a canal, facing, and a few yards back from which, 



The City of Ripened Curds 21 i 

is the old weigh-house. The other two sides are closed 
in by little brick houses. The square is cobbled, and 
all across this space, from one side to the other, were 
piled the red and yellow cheeses. 

They were not piled " like cannon-balls/' as I have 
often seen asserted, but in long parallelograms, two 
cheeses deep, eight wide and perhaps a hundred long, 
with just enough room between for one to walk. One 
might almost fancy it a quaint garden, with beds all 
of a size and little sunken paths running across it; 
and, I imagine, the cheese is piled in this special form 
to assist the purchaser in estimating the amount of 
his purchase. 

This was the factory cheese, which had been brought 
in by boat the day before, unloaded, piled on the pave- 
ment with a careful exactitude characteristically Dutch, 
and then covered with tarpaulins and grass, the for- 
mer to keep off the wet, the latter to keep off the sun. 
They varied in colour from a light yellow to a deep 
and violent red, and all of them had been greased 
till they shone like burnished metal. They were all of 
a size — about six or seven inches in diameter, and 
a hasty computation placed the number at that moment 
in the market-place at twenty-five thousand — a week's 
product. Something like ten million pounds of cheese 
is sold in this market-place every year, which makes 
a weekly average of about two hundred thousand 
pounds. One doesn't realize, until he sees it, what 
a lot of cheese that is! 

The selling does not begin until ten o'clock, so that 



212 The Spell of Holland 

buyers and sellers alike were standing around and 
chatting together unconcernedly, or watching the un- 
loading of still more cheeses from a tardily-arrived 
barge. The process illustrates the cheapness of labour 
in Holland. At the factory, the cheeses had been 
passed into the boat one by one, and carefully placed 
on racks in the hold. Arrived at the market-place, 
two men take down the golden balls and hand them 
up to two other men on the deck, who give them a 
final touching up with a greasy rag and then toss them 
to two men on the quay, who carefully stack them 
in rectangular piles. After they have been sold, most 
of them are placed back in the same racks from which 
they were taken, and carried away to Amsterdam, 
or wherever the buyer's warehouse happens to be. It 
is difficult to understand why the buyer does not go 
direct to the factory and make his purchase, and so 
save all this handling, which must add appreciably 
to the cost of the cheese. The reason, I suppose, is 
that it has never been done that way. 

At one end of the square, and the most interesting 
thing in it, stands the old weigh-house. It was orig* 
inally a church — the church of the Holy Ghost; 
but in 1582, at a time when Catholic churches were at 
somewhat of a discount in this part of Holland, it 
was transformed into a weigh-house, and very skil- 
fully, too. At the end toward the canal are three 
wide-arched doors protected by a canopy, each of them 
giving entrance to a great beam-scale. By the side of 
each scale is a tall pile of queerly-shaped barrows 



The City of Ripened Curds 213 

for carrying the cheese, and standing near by are the 
porters, garbed very suitably in white canvas. The 
queer note in their costumes is the flat hat of var- 
nished straw which each one wears, with little stream- 
ers hanging down behind. For some of the hats are 
yellow, and some are green, and some are red; and 
then you will notice that the barrows are painted the 
same colours ; and then you will see that the men 
with green hats are with the green barrows, and so 
on; and finally, when you are ^6ndering at all this, 
you will perceive that the weights of the several scales 
are also painted red, or yellow, or green; and finally 
you will understand that the green barrows serve the 
green scales, and the yellow barrows the yellow scales, 
and the red barrows the red scales. All of which is 
designed to simplify the process of weighing, and is 
part of a system which has existed from time im- 
memorial. 

Let me add that all this, and much more, was ex- 
plained to us by a middle-aged man who was eager 
to talk — an American, as he proudly proclaimed 
himself — who was back for a visit at his old 
home, and who had evidently been welcomed heart- 
ily by his old acquaintances. Yes, he said, Holland 
was very nice, but there was no place like America — 
and more to the same purpose — exactly what all 
Americanized Europeans say, and evidently from the 
heart ! 

The handsome tower which rises above the weigh- 
house dates from the end of the sixteenth century, 



214 The Spell of Holland 

and is also worthy of attention. It rises from the 
roof massive and square; then it changes to an 
octagon, and then to a still smaller octagon with open 
sides, displaying the ranged bells of the chimes. The 
termination is a Turkish-looking bulbous affair of 
metal, after the fashion so common in the Nether- 
lands — an inheritance, they tell us, of the days when 
the Hollanders returned from the Crusades, bringing 
many Oriental ideas with them — the bulbous cupola 
being one, and the wind-mill another! 

But the interest of the tower is not yet exhausted; 
for, if you look closely, you will discern, just under 
the clock-dial, a mannikin with a long trumpet in his 
hand, and beneath him a curious oblong opening, with 
a circular projection under it, whose use you will 
wonder at. But wait; ten o'clock is about to strike, 
and you will see! 

The hour is tolled softly, and yet clearly, by a 
beautiful bell; then the carillon plays a merry tune; 
then the mannikin places the trumpet to his lips and 
blows ten shrill blasts, and, as though in answer to 
a signal, little painted horses career in and out of the 
opening below him, running a race. It is all very 
amusing and very Dutch. Perhaps there is some con- 
nection between this mimic race and the great " hard- 
draverij," (hard-drivery — what a beautiful com- 
pound it is!), or trotting-races, which are held here 
every August, and which attract many thousands of 
visitors. It is a curious fact that our own trotting- 
races are a direct descendant of these, and were 







THE WEIGH-HOUSE, ALKMAAR. 



i 



The City of Ripened Curds 215 

brought to us by the Dutch who settled New Neder- 
land. 

But ten o'clock has struck, and the scene in the 
market-place has taken on a more animated char- 
acter. The grass has been brushed aside and the 
tarpaulins stripped away from the piles of cheeses, 
and up and down the narrow lanes the buyers walk, 
looking at them, picking them up and " hefting " 
them, and slapping them violently with a sound much 
like slapping a ripe watermelon. I don't know what 
that sound tells them — perhaps when they go " pink " 
they're bad and when they go "punk" they're good; 
but great emphasis seems to be placed upon this point, 
and the buyer will sometimes handle half a dozen 
in this way before he takes the trouble to sample one. 
I suppose my ear has not been trained — at any rate, 
I was unable to detect the slightest difference in the 
note which the cheeses gave off. 

The sampling is a very serious operation, and is 
done in a curious fashion. The buyer takes from 
his pocket a tiny scoop, and plunging it deep into 
the cheese, gives it a turn and pulls it out again, bring- 
ing a little plug of cheese with it. This he smells, 
crumbles between his fingers, examines minutely, and 
sometimes tastes — though the taste seems to be a 
minor consideration — after which he neatly replaces 
what is left of the plug, so that you can scarcely see 
that the cheese has been touched. 

Meanwhile the old farmers who have the cheese 
for sale stand stolidly by, puffing their cigars, but 



216 The Spell of Holland 

unable to conceal altogether their anxiety for the 
buyer's verdict. I suppose that business is much the 
same all the world over; at any rate, the same prin- 
ciple which, here in America, brings the big potatoes 
to the top of the barrel, also, in Holland, brings the 
best cheese to the top of the pile. That, at least, I 
take to be the reason why so many of the buyers 
dig the cheese they wish to sample out of the bottom 
row. 

But at last the verdict is ready. The buyer says 
a word or two to the seller, telling what he thinks 
of the cheese, naming a price, and striking the other's 
hand with his open palm. The seller shakes his head, 
names a higher price and slaps back. Then one of 
two things happens; either the buyer shrugs his 
shoulders and goes off to another pile, while the seller 
puffs his cigar and tries to look unconcerned; or a 
third price is agreed upon and the bargain closed by 
shaking hands upon it. The striking of palms as 
each price is named is done most emphatically, and 
echoes all over the market-place; but the final shake 
is short and sharp. 

That morning there was one old man for whom 
our hearts ached. What was the matter with his 
cheese I do not know; but buyer after buyer thumped 
it and sampled it and then turned away with a shrug 
more eloquent than words. Finally this treatment got 
on the old man's nerves, and he explained excitedly 
to the by-standers that there was nothing the matter 
with his cheese; that it was as good as any in 




THE ALKMAAR CHEESE-MARKET OPENS. 





'^zk* i 


> "if ;: ■ v . A 




•9* 





TESTING THE CHEESE. 



The City of Ripened Curds 217 

Alkmaar; that he was the victim of a conspiracy, 
and a great deal more of which we could not catch 
the drift. We grew ashamed of watching him, after 
a while, he was so visibly perturbed ; but we returned 
from time to time to see how he fared, and at last 
our hearts were cheered by seeing him effect a sale. 
I wish we could have told him how glad we were! 

As soon as the cheese is sold, it is piled on the 
barrows by the white-clad porters, and hustled off to 
the weigh-house, where the scaled have been carefully 
adjusted by an official in a top-hat. These barrows 
are really nothing but long crates with a platform in 
the centre and curved handles at either end, each of 
them holding from sixty to eighty cheeses. Upon 
these the cheeses are piled like cannon-balls, and then 
two porters slip over the handles the ends of a looped 
rope hanging from their shoulders, and shuffle off 
to the scales with their burden, shouting for everyone 
to look out for his legs. 

The queer shuffle with which they move, half run 
and half walk, is doubtless the evolution of long ex- 
perience and no little practice. It is necessary that 
they move absolutely in rhythm, for the crate swings 
freely at the end of the long loops, and when its 
bearers get out of step, it suffers a convulsion like 
a small boat on a stormy sea, and not infrequently its 
contents is sent rolling across the pavement in a golden 
flood. 

These cheese-carriers are, I understand, elected for 
life by the community, and though the work is hard 



218 The Spell of Holland 

and the wages small, the position is considered a good 
one I noticed that most of the carriers are well 
along in years, and I wondered how some of them, 
more frail-looking than the rest, could stand the heavy 
labour, which lasts, practically without stopping, until 
nightfall. One old pair in particular caught my eye, 
and I managed to get a picture of them just as they 
were taking a crate of cheese off the scales; they 
were more picturesque than most of the others, and, 
in spite of their age, were apparently just as lively 
after three or four hours of this work as they had 
been at the beginning. 

As soon as the cheese is weighed, it is carried, still 
on the crates, to the water-side and reloaded into the 
waiting barges. The loading is done by rolling the 
cheeses down a long wooden trough into the vessel's 
hold, where they are caught by a couple of men and 
carefully placed on the crates prepared for them, so 
that they do not touch each other and the air can 
circulate freely around them. Most of them will not 
be placed on the market again for months, but will 
be piled on racks in the jobber's warehouse to ripen. 
For the cheese, as it comes from the factory is, of 
course, green and soft, and is not esteemed by con- 
noisseurs until it has dried out and hardened. Indeed, 
the astute farmer sells it as soon as possible after 
he has made it, because the greener it is the more it 
weighs. As it ages, it shrinks and grows lighter 
through evaporation. Perhaps it is to ascertain the 
amount of water in it that all that thumping is done. 



The City of Ripened Curds 219 

The ripening process is, in itself, an art, for if 
the warehouse is too warm, the cheese loses some of 
its flavour in too-rapid evaporation, and if it is too 
cold, the cheese moulds. Hence a certain tempera- 
ture must be preserved, and I suppose each warehouse- 
man has his own secrets to aid in bringing forth 
perfect cheese. We stopped in to see one of these 
warehouses near the market-place — a lofty building, 
well- ventilated, with racks running clear to the roof, 
filled with I know not how many Thousands of cheeses. 
Let me add that this Edam cheese — the veritable 
article — is made throughout North Holland, and 
there are several other places in the province where 
it is marketed, but none of them can vie with Alkmaar 
in importance. Alkmaar, indeed, handles half the 
product of the whole province. Also, Edam cheese 
is imitated throughout the world — nowhere more 
successfully than here in America. 

The weighing begins at half -past ten, and at eleven 
the cheese made at private dairies is ready for sale. 
It is this which has been brought to the market in 
the high, gayly-painted wagons, which have been un- 
loaded while the chaffering for the factory cheese was 
in progress. The difference between the two is appar- 
ent even to a tyro. The home-made cheeses are larger 
than the others, being ten or eleven inches in diame- 
ter; they have not been coloured red or yellow and 
are not greased, so that they look just as they did 
when they came from the press in the great back- 
room of the farmer's house, except, of course, that 



220 The Spell of Holland 

a thin rind has formed around them. It is finer 
cheese than the other; it is, in fact, the product upon 
which the farmer and his wife particularly pride 
themselves, and it is as nearly perfect as cheese can 
be. In consequence, it commands a higher price, and, 
I imagine, very little of it is exported, for the Dutch 
are as fond of good things as any one. I have never 
seen any in this country, though the factory-made 
Edam cheese, or an imitation of it, is common enough. 

There was another difference. The buyers handled 
it more respectfully and seemed more easily satisfied 
as to its quality than in the case of the factory cheese. 
And I can well believe that each of those solid, nice- 
looking, prosperous old Dutch farmers had a reputa- 
tion to sustain and would have scorned to bring any 
cheese to market which was not worthy of himself 
and his father and his grandfather. At any rate, 
here the bargaining was soon concluded, and as it 
was now noon, with the carillon playing a more 
than usually elaborate melody, everybody but the 
porters and weighmasters adjourned to the numer- 
ous restaurants around the square to get something 
to eat. 

It was a good-natured throng and an interesting 
one, though there were few distinctive costumes — 
certainly none to match those of Zeeland or Friesland. 
Most of the men wore clothing of a cut and shape 
not unlike my own, but the material of which it was 
made looked heavy and durable as iron, and was 
almost always black. Practically all of them wore 



The City of Ripened Curds 221 

cloth caps. The women wore what would have 
seemed a superabundance of skirts in America, but 
their figures were slim compared with those of the 
good wives of Scheveningen and Volendam. Only 
a few of them wore caps, and these were compara- 
tively simple, and in every case were topped by a 
modern hat lavishly decorated with artificial flowers. 
Wooden shoes wer£ confined to the urchins clattering 
about the streets. From which it will be seen that 
Alkmaar and its neighbourhoocHias caught much of 
the modern commercial spirit of Amsterdam and 
Rotterdam, before which old customs crumble and 
fade away. It needed, however, but a single glance 
to see that these people were well-to-do, if not actually 
rich. There was an air of solid prosperity about 
them not to be mistaken. 

The streets of Alkmaar have also caught the modern 
spirit and are neither picturesque nor interesting, and, 
besides the cheese-market, there are only two things 
worth seeing — the stadhuis and the Groote Kerk. 
The latter is especially noteworthy. As one ap- 
proaches it from the town, it looks unusually huge, 
although it has no tower, and a closer inspection con- 
firms this impression. One wonders at the number 
of brick which must have been used in its construc- 
tion; but there is the same cause for wonder all 
over Holland. For brick, brick, brick are every- 
where — overhead and underfoot, on edge in the road- 
ways and piled into great walls and massive towers. 
It would almost seem that the Dutch had dug away 



222 The Spell of Holland 

most of the ground beneath their feet in order to 
convert it into building material! 

At one side of the church is a shady square, sur- 
rounded by clean little houses, in one of which the 
koster dwells — a handsome old man who delights 
to show his church, and who has picked up a smat- 
tering of English from his many visitors. Inside, 
the church is whitewashed from floor to vaulting; 
and there is the usual huge organ at the west end, 
the elaborately-carved pulpit against one of the pil- 
lars of the nave, with the huddled pews about it. This 
pulpit is unusually handsome, with its carved lions 
and pelicans, and the castle which is a part of the 
arms of Alkmaar; but the most interesting things in 
the church are the few survivals of its Catholic period. 

Near the organ is a quaint painting by one Caesar 
van Everdingen, a local artist, whose ideas were evi- 
dently quite beyond his powers of execution. In this 
he has chosen to represent the Seven Works of Mercy, 
one section for each " work." The picture dates from 
1507, and is a curious commentary upon the state of 
art in North Holland at that period. In the choir 
there still remain some of the old renaissance choir- 
stalls, with interesting carving, and a tomb supposed 
to contain the entrails of Floris the Fifth, Count of 
Holland, who died in 1296. As the church, which 
was originally dedicated to Saint Laurence, was not 
built until two centuries later, one wonders where the 
entrails were kept in the interim. 

But to me the most absorbing feature of the church 



The City of Ripened Curds 223 

was its pavement, which is composed almost entirely 
of curiously carved grave-slabs, excellently preserved. 
When the occupant of the grave happened to be noble, 
his coat of arms was cut upon the slab, usually in 
very high relief and admirably done. When he was 
not noble, simply his name was given, with the dates 
of birth and death, and then a device to illustrate 
the name. 

Thus, Jan Varken is distinguished by a pig with a 
curly tail, for in Dutch " varkeri " means pig, and 
is, of course, distantly related to our own " pork." 
Jacob Peereboom is indicated by a pear-tree, " boom " 
meaning tree. The tomb of Pieter Klaverway is 
decorated with a clover-leaf, and here it will be seen 
how nearly, sometimes, the Dutch language resembles 
our own. Jacob Kniper is indicated by a cooper's 
tool, and Jan Dircksz Molenaer by an elaborate wind- 
mill, for "molenaer " is the Dutch for " miller." The 
engraver of the tombstone of Cornelius Plaat seems 
to have been up against it, and contented himself 
with a simple rectangle, which certainly looks little 
enough like a plate; while the slab which covers 
Dirck Groenbroeck is- ornamented with a pair of 
voluminous breeches with his name across the seat. 
I can think of only one explanation of these carvings : 
that they were intended to enable people who could 
not read to identify the occupant of the grave beneath. 

We bade good-bye to the koster, at last, and took 
a look at the stadhuis, which dates from about the 
same period as the church, and whose graceful Gothic 



224 The Spell of Holland 

tower has fortunately been preserved. There is a 
municipal museum inside, but it contains little of 
interest except to the antiquarian. One of its prized 
possessions is a picture of the siege of Alkmaar, de- 
picting, with much detail, a peculiarly frenzied mo- 
ment of that memorable event. 

As we walked back through those clean and peace- 
ful streets, it was difficult to imagine that they had 
ever witnessed such scenes; and that the ancestors 
of the stolid burghers who now trod them had defied 
and held back and finally defeated sixteen thousand 
Spanish regulars, under command of Don Frederic, 
son of the redoubtable Alva, and fresh from the cap- 
ture of Haarlem. There were, within the city, only 
thirteen hundred burghers capable of bearings arms, 
besides a garrison of eight hundred soldiers, or a 
total of about two thousand to oppose the Spanish 
legions. Summoned to surrender, they refused; and 
the Spanish troops were drawn so closely about the 
city, that, as Alva said, " it was impossible for a 
sparrow to enter or go out." Nor did he leave the 
city's defenders in doubt as to the fate awaiting them. 
" If I take Alkmaar," Alva wrote to his royal master, 
" I am resolved not to leave a single creature alive. 
The knife shall be put to every throat." He had 
already proved, on more than one occasion, how 
capable he w r as of carrying out the threat. But he 
was not to take Alkmaar. 

The siege lasted seven weeks, during which assault 
after assault was repulsed with a fury equalling the 



The City of Ripened Curds 225 

Spaniards' own; for whole days the town was sub- 
jected to steady cannonading; gaunt famine stalked 
through the streets; but there was no thought of sur- 
render. At last the Prince of Orange determined to 
cut the dykes and flood the country — - " better a sub- 
merged land than a lost one," he said — but the 
message announcing this decision fell into the hands 
of the enemy, and terror-stricken at the fate which 
threatened them, the Spaniards raised the siege and 
made off, under cover of darkness, to Amsterdam. 
It was the first time that a Dutch town had been 
able to stand against them. 

Mid-afternoon had come, but as we crossed the 
market-place again, we found the white-clad porters 
still shuffling with their loaded barrows to the scales 
and from them to the boats drawn up along the quay. 
In spite of their hours of labour, they had made no 
very considerable impression upon the great golden 
piles which lay athwart the pavement, and I won- 
dered if they would be done by nightfall. 

In the street just beyond, the farmers and their 
families were preparing 'to return home. Handsome 
Flemish horses, their harness glittering with burnished 
metal and sometimes jingling with little bells, w r ere 
being hitched to the high-beamed wagons, or to shin- 
ing cape-topped Tilburys, elaborately carved and orna- 
mented, in which mevrouw and the children had 
already bestowed themselves; the former a strong, 
well-built and capable-looking woman, the latter red- 
cheeked cherubs with bright eyes peeping at us shyly 



226 The Spell of Holland 

and ever-ready smiles upon their lips. Indeed, old 
and young alike nodded and smiled to us as we passed. 
We found the train crowded with buyers and their 
clerks on their way back to Amsterdam. The ones 
in our compartment passed the time with a lively card- 
game, which one of them told me is called " pondear." 
I have looked in vain in Hoyle for some description 
of it; and though I watched them for a long time, 
I could catch not the faintest glimmer of its princi- 
ples. I turned, at last, to look out upon the quiet 
landscape, with its dark-green fields and lanes of 
shimmering water and tree-bordered roads; and so, 
in the first dusk of twilight, the train rumbled under 
the echoing shed of the great station at Amsterdam 
and came creaking to a stop. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE ISLAND OF MARKEN, LIMITED 

There is one excursion from Amsterdam which 
every tourist party takes, and tfiat is the little trip 
to Marken and Volendam, its ostensible object being 
to give the members of those parties a glimpse of 
" real Holland/' as distinguished from the Holland 
of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague. The 
excursion, therefore, has a great disadvantage for the 
leisurely traveller in that he is apt to be crowded 
and to be compelled to listen to silly comment and 
foolish question; and there may also be some doubt 
as to whether a place maintained for show, as Marken 
is, and where the inhabitants are so rapacious and 
un-Dutch, is really worth seeing. 

However, we decided' to risk it, and rose bright 
and early that Sunday morning, in order to get started 
before the tourist parties were abroad; also in order 
to have time to see the island properly. Sunday is, 
of course, the best day to make the trip because the 
fishermen are all at home that day, and everybody 
has on his best and brightest costume. It is also 
the worst day; for the children are not at school, 
and so at liberty to make the visitor's life a burden 

227 



228 The Spell of Holland 

to him. But I believe they dismiss school at Marken 
whenever a tourist arrives. 

It was raining when we started, but the sky soon 
cleared and the rest of the day was perfect. We 
ferried across the Ij to the Tolhuis — toll-house or 
custom-house — and there caught the steam-tram for 
Monnikendam, relieved to find that, with the excep- 
tion of a party of Dutchmen in rigid black going 
to a funeral, we were the only passengers. We got 
into a " Neit Rooken " carriage; but the conductor 
saw my hand straying toward the pocket from which 
some cigars protruded, and laughed and told me to 
go ahead and smoke, if I wanted to. A notice in 
the car read, " Passengers are kindly requested not 
to scatter money/' so I didn't offer him a tip, but 
he looked as though he enjoyed the cigar I gave him. 
It was an expensive one, costing two cents. 

These Dutch are certainly economical. On the 
engines drawing the steam-trams there is only one 
man, who acts as engineer and fireman both; and, 
at odd moments, rings the engine-bell with one hand 
and eats his lunch with the other. And this on a 
railway managed by the state! 

We ran along between little canals, frightening the 
frogs into the water, and scaring up a heron now 
and then, and soon came to Broek. It is a town of 
gayly-painted houses, each with its little moat and 
bridge — a sort of toy-town, with a reputation for 
exaggerated cleanliness which, I fear, it no longer 
deserves. At least it seems sadly changed from the 



The Island of Marken, Limited 229 

day M. de Amicis trembled to drop a cigar-ash in 
its street. We saw no costumes, or only the usual 
Sunday one for men of heavy black, though there 
were a few women with caps on and be-flowered hats 
perched above them. 

On we went again, past more canals, with many 
fishermen sitting patiently waiting for a bite, and par- 
ties of others — clubs, I suppose, with the usual 
elaborate paraphernalia — tramming across the fields 
to a good place. Farmers, more religiously inclined, 
were driving to church with their families, in high, 
brightly-varnished Tilburys, with the horse a long 
way in front. 

And so we came to Monnikendam, so called because 
this dam was built by the " monnikens," or monks, 
— a quaint old town with a church big enough to 
hold the population twice over — a church built in 
the days of the town's prosperity, and now unused 
save for a portion of the nave. The avenue of tall 
trees around it gives it a setting of more than usual 
beauty. 

The town's coat-of-arms is reminiscent of its origin, 
for it shows a Franciscan monk in black habit, hold- 
ing a mace. Certainly there is little else about the 
place to remind one of those brave old days when 
it was one of the great towns of Holland, and could 
fit out a fleet to fight — and defeat — the Spaniards. 

It was at Monnikendam we had the pleasure of 
meeting Emanuel Leuw, an urchin of about eight. 
Emanuel had arisen early that morning, for the 



230 The Spell of Holland 

tourist was his prey, and Sunday the day when the 
harvest was richest. He greeted us before we had 
time to step foot to earth, and intimated that he was 
a collector of rare coins, and would be glad to receive 
any American or English or Hindustanee money we 
might have with us. 

We informed Emanuel that, before entering his 
interesting country, we had changed our foreign coin 
into gulden and dubbletjes. 

Not cast down, he told us that he was also a con- 
noisseur of postage stamps, and would be glad to 
have any foreign stamps we might have on our 
persons. 

We expressed regret that we had not had the fore- 
sight to bring some American stamps with us. 

" But you will return some day to America/' said 
Emanuel, who spoke English very well. 

"Yes," I said; "we hope to." 

" Perhaps you will then send me some. ,, 

" Why, of course we will ! " cried Betty. " What 
is your name? " 

" Here it is," he said, his grave little face beam- 
ing, and he drew from a pocket-book a slip of paper 
on which his name and address were written, in readi- 
ness for just such an emergency. A boy like that 
will make his mark, some day! 

Betty sent him a package of stamps, after we got 
home ; and in due time a letter came from him, thank- 
ing her prettily. " I hope you will come soon in 
Holland again," the letter continues, " and shall meet 



The Island of Marken, Limited 231 

you in our town of Monnikendam. I will show you 
also the curiosities, the interieur of the church, the 
towns-hall with the monnik in top and the celebrated 
tower with the horses/ ' Perhaps — who knows? 

While this conference was in progress, a number 
of people had gathered about us, among whom was 
the town's solitary policeman. When they learned 
that we were bound for Marken, they set off in a body 
to show us the way to the boat, the policeman in 
advance. It was almost an escort of honour! Half- 
way down a narrow little lane, we saw a strange 
figure approaching us — a man wearing the most 
remarkable nether garments I had even seen on a 
human being. They came just below the knee, where 
they were tightly buckled, and they flared out fully a 
foot at each side, so that, from the knees to the waist, 
they formed an almost perfect circle about three feet 
in diameter. He wore a tight-fitting coat, buttoned 
at the side, with a double row of buttons down the 
front, and large gilt buttons at the belt; and the 
extreme tightness of the upper garment served to 
accentuate the looseness of the lower one. 

It was the skipper of the boat for Marken, wearing, 
naturally, the costume of the island. One gets more 
or less accustomed to it, after awhile, but I shall never 
forget the shock the first sight of it gave me. 

The skipper stopped when he saw us, and turned 
back, and escorted us on board the boat, which, as 
a compliment to the frequent American tourist, is 
named " President Roosevelt.' ' The fact that he is 



232 The Spell of Holland 

no longer president has not yet penetrated to Marken, 
where his deeds still reverberate. We were the only- 
passengers, and the boat was soon puffing across the 
little bay toward a dark spot on the horizon, which 
gradually resolved itself into the groups of houses 
which constitute the Marken villages. The harbour 
was filled with scores of fishing-boats, tucked like 
sardines behind the breakwater, each with its stiff 
little pennant fluttering, and with brown nets hoisted 
up to the mastheads to dry. How they ever got the 
boats packed in that way was a mystery; how they 
were going to get them out again was another. 

Evidently no tourists were expected by the early 
boat, for there was no one to receive us except two 
or three dour-looking fishermen, wearing the same 
ridiculous costume as our captain. ' The latter, how- 
ever, with an eye to business, led us at once to his 
father's house, and introduced us to his sister, who 
seemed to be there alone. The other members of 
the family, I judge, had gone to church. Then the 
captain left us, and the sister proceeded to show us 
the house, which visitors to the island are led to 
believe is a typical one. I should like to believe so, 
too; but I fear it is got up solely with an eye to 
the tourist traffic. 

It looks more like a museum than a house, with 
its old furniture, and embroidered hangings, the walls 
covered with many-coloured plates, and every pro- 
jection crowded with every variety of curio — Chinese 
cups and saucers, goblets, ostrich eggs, little ships of 



The Island of Marken, Limited 233 

spun glass, Dresden statuettes, vases of every size 
and shape, porcelain dogs and cats with heads that 
shake and tails that wag — a confusion of objects 
which baffles description. All the Dutch have more 
or less this habit of filling their houses with useless 
and ugly bric-a-brac, for piling object upon object; 
but here in this show-room at Marken, this foolish- 
ness has become insanity. 

Two cupboard-beds are also shown, built into the 
walls, with figured curtains in front of them and 
embroidered pillows heaped high within. A lot of 
old brass and pewter occupied odd corners on the 
floor, so that one moved about with difficulty. I have 
heard it stated that none of this bric-a-brac is for 
sale ; I don't know, for we tried to buy nothing but 
some post-cards, of which the skipper's sister had a 
large assortment. 

She was a lanky girl, not particularly pretty, but 
she wore the costume of the island, which is the same 
for all females, from the cradle to the grave, and 
which I suppose I must try to describe. Let us begin 
with the head. The cap is in five pieces, put on one 
over the other, the outer one being elaborately em- 
broidered i{i red, and covered on week-days by another 
of white chintz, also embroidered. The hair is 
brought forward over the forehead, cut off square 
and then turned up into a stiff little bang, very comi- 
cal. From under the cap, on each side of the face, 
a long curl falls in front of either shoulder. These 
are natural when the woman is young; but when she 



234 The Spell of Holland 

gets old, false hair is substituted, so that the curls 
are always blond or brown, whatever the age of the 
wearer. 

The waist is also elaborately embroidered in green 
and yellow and different shades of red, and is handed 
down from mother to daughter, for one of these 
waists takes many years to make. Its sleeves come 
about half-way down the arm, and are striped red 
and white. From these, undersleeves of dark blue 
cloth extend to the wrists. The skirts, which are dark, 
and sometimes striped, are most voluminous, and over 
them is commonly worn an apron of lighter stuff 
with an embroidered inset across the top. Black or 
blue knit stockings and wooden shoes complete the 
costume, which, in its effect, is barbaric rather than 
beautiful. 

But there is nothing about it as startling as the 
garments with which the male portion of the popula- 
tion covers its legs. I have already referred to the 
skipper's, and I have wondered vainly how garments 
so absurd came to be devised. Their absurdity, in- 
deed, reaches a height so great that one stares at 
them in incredulous wonder, scarcely able to believe 
one's eyes. Some of the smaller girls wear trousers 
like the boys, and then the sex of the wearer can 
only be determined by the embroidered cap and waist. 
The boys usually wear little dark cloth caps with 
patent-leather visors, but no girl, however small, ap- 
pears in public without the full panoply of the woman's 
head-dress, curls and all. In the photograph oppo- 




CHILDREN AT MARKEN, FRONT VIEW. 



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CHILDREN AT MARKEN, REAR VIEW. 



The Island of Marken, Limited 235 

site this page, it will be seen that some of the girls 
are wearing trousers. 

As we came out of the skipper's house, a little old 
woman like a grasshopper held us up and insisted 
that we visit her house, also. We did, and met her 
daughter-in-law, and were shown about the place, 
which I imagine to be more typical of the island than 
the first we had seen. There were still some plates 
on the walls and some bric-a-brac olpttered about, but, 
in spite of this, the effect was that of bare poverty. 
It was curious to look up right to the towering roof. 
For these houses are built all in one room, and then 
divided by partitions without ceilings, so that over- 
head is a dim vastness in which fishing-nets and other 
indistinguishable things are suspended. One wonders 
how such a house can be warmed in winter, and I 
guess the answer is that it isn't. 

These women were particularly proud of their 
wardrobe, and got out many boxes filled with em- 
broidered things to show us. They also showed us 
how they iron. The article to be ironed is wrapped 
about a round piece of wood, and then is rolled back 
and forth on a board by means of a flat piece of 
wood, or mangle, the operator pressing down with 
all her strength. We saw a lot of these mangles 
afterwards, in antique shops, but we should never 
have known what they were but for this demonstra- 
tion at Marken. Then the old woman posed for her 
picture, and then we tipped them both and went away. 

That is the secret of this island's existence. All 



236 



The Spell of Holland 



is fish that comes to its net — in winter the fish have 
fins and come from the sea; in summer they have 
legs and come mostly from America. And tips of 
copper are disdained. They must be of silver, or 
the tipper is treated to black looks and sometimes to 
black words. The children are taught to beg, and 
are very expert in annoying the stranger until he 
tosses them some money in self-defence. So a visit 
to the island is apt to grate upon nervous people; and 
all such I should advise to stay away. Others should 
remember that this begging is a trade, and to respond 
to it is simply to encourage it. 

Though a small island, and with most of its sur- 
face lower than the Zuyder Zee, which is kept back 
by a dyke, Marken has seven hamlets, all of them 
on artificial mounds, built of earth brought from the 
mainland. Six of these mounds are crowded with 
wooden houses; the seventh is the cemetery. The 
principal hamlet is the one which clusters around the 
church and schoolhouse, and toward it, from all the 
others, little groups of people were wending their 
way for the morning service. We thought we would 
go, too, until we learned that the service lasted two 
hours. So we walked about the narrow streets, in- 
stead, amused by the surveillance of the island's single 
policeman, who evidently felt doubly responsible since 
most of the islanders were at church. The houses 
are of wood, painted black or brown ; one-storied with 
towering roofs of red tiles; and huddled so closely 
together that the passage-ways between them are 






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The Island of Marken, Limited 237 

scarcely wide enough for two to walk abreast. Most 
of them seem to be very old; though occasionally 
a fire breaks out which sweeps through the hamlet 
before it can be subdued. 

The villages are connected with each other by little 
paved ways; but in winter, the sea usually breaks 
in, so that the only means of communication is by 
boat, until the water freezes over. When the winter 
is very severe, it freezes clear to^the mainland, and 
this stretch of ice is then the scene of a great fair, 
in which thousands of Amsterdammers join. Even 
with the distraction of that gayety, existence here in 
winter must be about as comfortless as anywhere on 
earth. 

We strolled about from one hamlet to another for 
more than an hour, the centre of interest. Once we 
were posing some children for a photograph, when 
their mother interfered until the scale of remunera- 
tion had been agreed upon ; another woman also look- 
ing for a tip, beckoned us in to show us her baby, 
five or six months old, in complete costume, even to 
the cap and apron. Betty had me photograph her 
with it in her arms; and when she picked it up, she 
found it even had stays sewed in its little bodice. A 
baby in corsets ! 

We stopped at a restaurant near the pier, presently, 
to get a lunch; and while we were eating, we heard 
a whistle, and crowds of children began to hurry 
toward the wharf; and here in a few minutes came 
streaming a big " personally conducted " party, with 



238 The Spell of Holland 

the uniformed conductor leading the way. He took 
them to the captain's house, though only about half 
of them were able even to peep in, blew his whistle 
to bring them out, hurried them over to the church 
hamlet, blew his whistle again to tell them that the 
time was up, and in fifteen minutes they had seen 
Marken and were ready to re-embark! 

So were we, and we sailed across to Volendam in 
one of the fishing-boats, built broad and low, and 
with a great red-brown sail and jib. It is only a 
short distance to Volendam, which is scarcely visible 
from the sea, huddled as it is behind its dyke. Here, 
too, we found the harbour jammed with fishing-boats, 
and a crowd of children ready to receive us. For 
Volendam is almost as much of a show place as 
Marken. 

The costume is also very striking. I like the 
women's caps, especially, with their little wings stick- 
ing out on either side, giving a coquettish look to 
the gravest face. The skirts are even more volu- 
minous than at Marken, but there is not so much 
embroidery. The nether garments worn by the men 
are also very redundant, but they look more like 
trousers and less like bloomers than those of the 
Markeners because they are not gathered in at the 
knee. What I cannot understand is why these Dutch, 
an economical and careful people, should needlessly 
waste in one pair of trousers enough cloth to clothe 
the whole family. 

A bright- faced urchin, with a few words of Eng- 



The Island of Marken, Limited 239 

lish, caught on to us almost at once, and was so 
good-natured and anxious to go along that we had 
not the heart to send him away. So he showed us 
about the town, and the conversation between Betty 
and him ran something like this: 

"What is that building?" 

" Dat de school, lady." 

" Do you go there ? " 

" No, lady ; dat de girl school.^/ 

" And yonder is the church ? " 

" Yes, lady ; Catholic — all Catholic here." 

"What is that odour in the air?" 

He did not understand, so Betty sniffed. 

"Oh!" he cried. "Brew for de schnapps, lady; 
brew for de schnapps ! " 

" You a nice girl," he volunteered, after awhile, 
having got his hand in hers. "Dat your boy?" he 
went on, indicating me. 

" Yes." 

"Him a nice boy!" he added, with conviction, 
though I am at a loss to, guess upon what it was 
founded. " You like my picture ? " 

" No," said Betty, and his face fell. " But we want 
the pictures of some of these pretty girls." 

His face brightened. 

" Yes, yes," and he led us up to a group of them. 

They were willing; but when they found that 
Betty wanted to pose me with one on either arm, an 
unaccountable shyness developed. I suspect they were 
afraid their sweethearts might object. In fact, I re- 



240 The Spell of Holland 

gret to say, the prettiest girls in the group absolutely- 
refused; but at last two, of decidedly inferior attrac- 
tiveness, were found who were willing to compromise 
themselves — for a consideration ; and the picture was 
taken, while an interested group, with our little guide 
in the foreground, looked on. 

The houses of Volendam are of wood, like those 
of Marken, usually painted red, and with tiled roofs. 
The roofs are especially in evidence, because the 
favourite promenade is along the top of the dyke, 
high above the houses. Here, on Sundays, the fish- 
ermen congregate, and sit squatted on their heels, 
smoking for hours at a time, and gazing out across 
the water without exchanging a word. The men of 
Volendam are said to smoke more and talk less than 
any others in Holland, and I suppose they take a 
certain pride in living up to this difficult reputation. 
Here also is the famous Hotel Spaander, the resort 
of artists, who have left souvenirs all over its walls, 
and many pictures in part settlement of account. 

At last we were ready to go on to Edam, about 
a mile away. A narrow canal leads there from 
Volendam, and along this a little trekschuit runs, 
drawn by a man and a dog; but we decided to walk, 
for the day was so pleasant, and we asked our guide 
to set us upon the way. He did so, and I closed 
his fist about a dubbletje, or ten-cent piece. A larger 
boy who had been following along, ran up to see 
what I had given him. 

" Too much ! " he cried, when he saw the minute 








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so 



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H <4J 



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The Island of Marken, Limited 241 

coin, about as large as one of our old silver three- 
cent pieces. " Too much for little boy ! " 

But we told him to run along and mind his own 
business, and bade our small conductor farewell. I 
am sure he was sorry to see us go! 

That was a pleasant walk along the narrow tow- 
path, paved with clinkers; and we were almost sorry 
when Edam appeared ahead, with its enormous Groote 
Kerk looming over it. We got into the town across 
a little drawbridge, and met a pfocession headed by 
a band going somewhere, and they were all very 
jolly and waved their hands at us and cheered; and 
then we went on along the clean and quiet streets, 
and inquired the way to the church of a woman who 
didn't seem to understand, and three or four others 
ran out to direct us, and to tell us not to blame the 
woman for not answering, because she was an idiot; 
and all along the streets, people nodded and smiled 
at us, to show their good-will; and we nodded and 
smiled back, to show ours. 

It is only from the Groote Kerk, with its vast in- 
terior, bare and depressing save for a little old stained 
glass in the windows, that one may gain an idea of 
the ancient importance of this quiet town. But Edam 
was once a city of thirty thousand, one of the five 
great cities of Holland, holding the key to Amsterdam 
at the mouth of the Ij (Ijdam is the town's real name). 
But times change ; the Zuyder \Zee silted up ; Am- 
sterdam cut for herself a water-way straight to the 
ocean; and the life-blood of commerce ceased to flow 



242 The Spell of Holland 

through Edam's streets. Some cheese is still made 
in the neighbourhood and marketed in the town; the 
cow on her coat-of-arms pays tribute to one of the 
sources of her former fame; some old houses with 
interesting carvings still remain, and some old tales 
of former wonders — and that is all. 

M. Henri Havard, in that most diverting of travel- 
books, " The Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee," from 
which so many later ones have been drawn without 
credit to their source, described one of these reliefs 
which we did not have the good fortune to see, but 
which I am going to hunt up, if ever again I visit 
Edam. It is called " The Fish which Everyone 
Likes." A fisherman has caught in his net a hand- 
some young woman, and a soldier, a monk, a hunter, 
an alchemist, a schoolmaster, and an old woman each 
in passing pays compliment to the miraculous draught 
in a Rabelaisian couplet. 

The stadhuis is not in itself interesting; but in 
the burgomeester's room the portraits of four ce- 
lebrities of the town are preserved: Pieter Dirksz, 
whose beard was so long that he had to loop it up 
to keep it out of the mud; Jan Osterlyn, who sits 
between his son and daughter pointing proudly to a 
fleet of ninety-two ships, all his own, and painted 
in painful perspective; Trijntje Kevijr, a maiden 
whose height, at the age of nineteen, was nine feet, 
and who presumably added another inch or two before 
she got her growth ; and lastly Jan Cornelisson, who, 
at the age of forty-two, weighed four hundred and 



The Island of Marken, Limited 243 

fifty-two pounds, an inn-keeper who was his inn's 
best advertisement, and who recognized the fact by 
causing this portrait to be painted as a signboard. 
Trijntje's shoes, in which a child might sit and paddle 
about the canals, are said to be preserved somewhere 
in the building, but for some reason we did not see 
them. I should like to spend some days at Edam 
and gain further information about these remarkable 
personages. Did Trijnte marry? Did Jan Osterlyn 
die poor? ' ^ 

Exhausted by these researches, we found a quiet 
little inn on a side street, with a dog guarding the 
front door. We finally persuaded him to let us pass, 
and after wandering about the house for a time, found 
the proprietor and demanded food. He seemed un- 
certain, and hastened out to consult with someone; 
but finally came back and said we could have soup. 

"And tea?" 

" Oh, yes." 

" And bread and butter? " 

" Oh, yes." 

"And cheese?" 

"But certainly; there was always cheese." 

"And perhaps cold ham?" 

" No — but there was cold veal." (" Kalfsvleesch " 
is the word.) 

It was surprising how many things there were, 
when we finally got them all out ; and how good they 
tasted, as we sat there and ate and gazed out at 
the quiet canal. And the inn-keeper came and sat 



244 The Spell of Holland 

down, after awhile, when he saw we were willing 
to talk, and told us that his business was very bad; 
that scarcely anyone stopped at Edam any more; that 
visitors just took a look at the town, on the way to 
or from Volendam and Marken; and a lot more that 
I have forgotten. 

We strolled down to the station, after awhile, 
admiring the picturesque canals and the pretty houses, 
and exchanging greetings with a family fishing off 
the back-end of their yard. 

" Good-bye ! good-bye ! ' they called, and waved 
their hands; and they did not in the least mean to 
bid us farewell, but only to say "How are you?' 
or something of that kind. All over Holland, the 
visitor is greeted with "Good-bye, sir; good-bye," 
which is the only English salutation many of the 
people know. As the last words of departing English 
or Americans, I suppose the phrase has stuck in their 
memories. But, until one gets used to it, it is a little 
disconcerting, on entering a shop or cafe, to be 
greeted with "Good-bye, sir; good-bye!" 

At the station we met one of the tourists who had 
got separated from his party and, being thrown on 
his own resources for the first time, was sadly at a 
loss what to do. So we took him along with us, and 
he told us his troubles, and how the party had been 
ten days in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Holland, 
and was going on to Paris next day, and then to Lon- 
don, to sail from Liverpool at the end of the week; 
and how they got on each other's nerves; and how 



I 



-f' 




The Island of Marken, Limited 245 

one member hadn't changed his collar nor, presuma- 
bly, anything else since he started; and he was quite 
pitiful about it, and wanted us to take him some place 
where we could have a nice little Dutch dinner to- 
gether; but there are some sacrifices too great for 
human nature. So we piloted him to the door of 
the " American " hotel where he was staying and left 
him there, and fared gayly on to our own little inn 
with the unpronounceable name. , 

And that evening we had dinner at a quiet cafe 
overlooking the Dam, where the head-waiter got the 
table at the corner window for us. And we sat for 
a long time over the coffee, while I smoked one of 
those delicious Dutch cigars, and watched the busy 
crowd below. And then, when darkness had really 
come, and all the lamps were lighted, we took a last 
stroll along the crowded Kalverstraat, for we were 
to leave Amsterdam in the morning. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE ANNEXATION OF THE " CHOCOLATE - DROP " 

It was Monday, July 4th, when we left Amsterdam 
for a circuit of the Zuyder Zee, — a fact which was 
brought home to us, as we walked along the Damrak 
toward the station, for Cook's office was crowded with 
tourists, as usual, and many of them had a small 
American flag displayed somewhere about their 
persons. We met our legless beggar again, too, and 
bade him good-bye, and dropped a few cents into his 
hand. He sat watching us, with his hat off, until we 
were out of sight. 

This trip about the Zuyder Zee was to enable us to 
visit those "Dead Cities," about which M. Havard 
had written so entertainingly, and which are so quaint 
and interesting; and we had prepared for it by 
purchasing a new piece of baggage. What with 
pieces of pewter and antiques in brass and porcelain, 
our suit-cases were growing very crowded; besides 
we wanted something lighter than a leather suit-case 
to take with us on a trip which would be a flying one. 
So, after many visits to the shops along the Kalver- 
straat, we had decided upon an English travelling-bag 
made of some sort of dark-brown material, whicK 
Betty had promptly christened the " chocolate-drop.''* 

246 



Annexation of the " Chocolate-Drop " 247 

The name stuck to it; and we found the bag most 
convenient ; for it was extensible, as well as light, and 
could accommodate a variety of articles truly amazing. 
It was fearfully and wonderfully made, with count- 
less flaps and pockets and places to put things. Long 
before that trip was finished, I thought we had reached 
the limit of its capacity; and yet always found that 
we could crowd in a few things more. We took the 
" chocolate-drop " with us all over Europe, and, after 
that trip around the Zuyder Zee, never thought of 
carrying the things we needed from day to day in 
anything else. In fact, as soon as we found out how 
convenient it was, we sent all the rest of our luggage 
on to Brussels and then to Paris, to wait for us. 

We both came to regard the " chocolate-drop " with 
a real affection; it was so faithful and so willing to 
stretch itself just a little more. It got some rough 
handling before we landed in New York again, but 
it never broke a strap or lost a single item of its con- 
tents ; and it shall certainly go with us next time ! 

The " chocolate-drop/' then, was our only piece of 
baggage that morning. I found, with satisfaction, 
that it fitted nicely into the luggage-rack in our com- 
partment; and quite happy and content, we took our 
places, and watched the spires of Amsterdam fade 
away behind us. The first part of the journey, as far 
as Zaandam, was all too familiar to us; but at Zaan- 
dam we turned north, leaving whirling away to our 
left the windmills we never got to photograph. From 
here on, the train ran along the rich Wormer polder, 



248 The Spell of Holland 

with many canals — almost as much water as land, 
in fact, from which I infer that the polder has not 
yet been effectively drained. 

Along the banks of the canals were piles of peat 
which had been dredged up from the bottom and 
dumped there to dry before being cut up into blocks. 
Many sheep and cattle were grazing in the fields, some 
of them wearing canvas jackets to protect them from 
the cold, and here and there was a low, tree-shaded 
farmhouse of brick, with immense roof of red tile. 
Sometimes only the lower part of the roof was of 
tile, the upper part being of thatch, trimmed, where it 
overlapped the tiles, into geometrical shapes. The 
Dutch are certainly past masters of the art of thatch- 
ing; it is so smooth and so visibly impervious. But 
I am afraid that both thatch and peat must yield, 
sooner or later, to the march of improvement, and 
leave Holland less picturesque. 

We came soon to Purmerend, a pretty and well- 
shaded town, with magnificent avenues of trees along 
the roads leading out of it. Then the train went on 
along the great Beemster polder, which seemed fairly 
alive with birds, herons, especially, standing slim and 
blue on the edges of the canals watching for fish. 

As we neared Hoorn, we could see on the right the 
high dyke keeping back the waters of the Zuyder Zee, 
and beyond it the sails of many boats. We noticed that 
all the gate-keepers in this part of Holland were 
women. There was one at every crossing, standing 
at attention as the train passed, red flag in hand. 



Annexation of the " Chocolate-Drop " 249 

Their uniform consisted of a blue cape with a red 
collar, and a queer stiff varnished hat. 

Then the train stopped at Hoorn, and we left it, 
for we wished to see this old and picturesque " dead 
city." Let me explain that term before I go farther. 

The Zuyder Zee is the youngest ocean on earth. 
History records its birth, its growth, and its decay. 
It will probably also record its death, for a project 
is on foot to pump it out and convert its bottom into 
smiling fields. 

In the middle ages, there was no sea here, but a 
mighty forest, in which was a lake, called Flevo by 
the Romans, from which a river flowed into the North 
Sea near the present town of Medemblik. But the 
Romans, in one of their engineering works, turned 
a large portion of the waters of the Rhine into the 
river Ijssel, which emptied into Lake Flevo; and the 
lake gradually overflowed its banks, uprooting the 
forests and turning the whole country into a soft 
marsh. Then, about the middle of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, came a great flood. The waters of the North 
Sea rushed in over this marsh, swallowing up the 
villages which had managed to maintain a foothold 
in it, and the Zuyder Zee was formed. 

It was quite deep, at first, so that ocean-going ves- 
sels could sail into it, and around its banks sprang 
up a chain of important towns fostered by this com- 
merce — Enkhuisen, Hoorn, Edam, Stavoren, Kam- 
pen, Monnikendam, and many others. These towns 
grew rich and powerful, possessed great fleets which 



250 The Spell of Holland 

sailed regularly to the Mediterranean, and even to 
China and the Indies. It was from the town of Hoorn 
that Willem Schouten sailed in the first ship which 
went around South America, and he named that ulti- 
mate point of land Cape Horn in honour of his native 
town. It was another Hoorn sailor, Abel Tasman, 
who discovered the country which he named Van Die- 
man's Land, but which is now Tasmania. It was still 
another, Jan Pietersz Coen, who established Dutch 
dominion in the East Indies. It was Hoorn that pro- 
vided Admiral Van Tromp with a navy. It was off 
Hoorn that Admiral Dirckzoon defeated an armada 
of thirty Spanish ships under Admiral Bossu, and 
saved the town from the horrors of a siege. It was to 
Hoorn that Bossu was brought a prisoner, and for 
three years he remained shut up there in the Protestant 
orphanage; where his gold goblet is still preserved. 
Such are some of the memories of greatness which 
cluster about Hoorn. 

And the other " dead cities " have histories just as 
interesting. This was the manner of their death. 
At the end of a century or two, the mouth of the 
Zuyder Zee began to silt up. The waves of the North 
Sea piled up banks of sand, which formed into islands 
or even more dangerous shallows; the process once 
begun went on with ever-increasing rapidity, until 
at last the Zuyder Zee was closed to anything larger 
than a fishing-boat. Amsterdam saved herself, as we 
have seen, by cutting a great canal to the ocean; but 
these other towns could do nothing. They withered 



Annexation of the " Chocolate-Drop " 251 

and withered; their walls grew too large for them; 
their houses too numerous for the people who 
remained. So some of the houses fell into disrepair 
and were pulled down; their harbours were aban- 
doned ; their commerce stopped. They are not exactly 
dead, but they have ceased to live. 

It was at the ancient city of Hoorn, then, that we 
left the train, and we soon found it to be one of the 
quaintest, prettiest towns in ^Holland. Many of 
the buildings date from the seventeenth century, 
and are ornamented with carvings in bas-relief and 
with designs in coloured tiles, evidence of the wealth 
of the burgesses who built them. Three houses near 
the water-front bear bas-reliefs depicting the great 
battle of the Zuyder Zee, for from the windows of 
these houses the principal citizens of the town watched 
the progress of that battle, with an anxiety which can 
be imagined, since the fate of the town hung upon its 
issue. In the market-place stands a statue of Jan 
Coen, to whom I have referred, and who, more per- 
haps than any other one man, changed the destiny of 
Holland. 

The town has, of course, a number of churches quite 
disproportionate to its present size, and the most 
interesting of these is, I think, the Nooderkerk. We 
had some difficulty finding the koster, but finally 
unearthed a little, bright- faced woman from an 
adjoining house, who showed us about, talking volubly 

in Dutch, with a few words of English, §he had st 



252 The Spell of Holland 

son in Cleveland, Ohio, and when she learned that 
we were from the same state, she seemed to consider 
us a sort of link with the absent one. 

Evidently the people who entered the church in the 
old days were expected to do so in a suitable frame 
of mind; for over the main entrance is carved a 
full-length skeleton reclining on a dark mat, with 
"Memento Mori " under it; and over the transept 
entrance appear a skull and cross-bones, with the 
inscription, " Hie Meta Dolores." Inside, a queer, 
spiral stair mounts to the roof. The lady-chapel has 
been converted into a waiting-room for wedding par- 
ties by the addition of a hooded fireplace. 

The walls which at one time surrounded Hoorn 
have long since been razed, but one of the old gates 
is still standing, and, of course, there is always the 
beautiful old water-gate looking out over the Zuyder 
Zee. It is, I think, the finest harbour tower in Holland. 
The fagade facing the town is covered with sculptures, 
that toward the harbour is rounded and plain save for 
an immense coat-of-arms. The little arches about the 
top are very graceful, the row of windows with their 
painted shutters add a touch of colour, and the roof 
mounts to the spire with an altogether satisfying deli- 
cacy. 

The clock in the tower, like most old Dutch clocks, 
has only one hand — the hour hand — so that it is 
possible to tell the time by it only approximately. 
Thus, if the hand is half-way between three and four, 
it is, of course, half-past three; but it requires a deli- 



Annexation of the " Chocolate-Drop " 253 

cate eye to tell the time within five minutes. If you 
ask a Dutchman what time it is, he will cock his eye 
at the clock and say " About " so-and-so. He always 
uses the qualifying " about." We tried it several 
times to find out. If you will look at the picture of 
the tower (which was under repair when we were 
there, as the scaffolding about it shows) opposite the 
preceding page, you will see that the single hand 
points to about twenty minutes ^fjt^r twelve. 

After we had inspected the tower, we wandered on 
along the dyke, from which one gets a splendid view 
of the sea, with every prospect a picture. One, in 
especial, I remember — a long point of land, with a 
few houses and a windmill on it, and some squat little 
boats rocking in the haven, and the white clouds piled 
against the blue sky. I took a picture of it, which you 
will find opposite page 252, but the picture gives only 
the faintest idea of the peaceful beauty of the scene. 

While I was thus engaged, a crowd of children, who 
had been practising, none too successfully, walking 
on stilts, gathered around me, and I let them look 
through the finder of the camera. There were cries 
of delight and astonishment, which brought their 
fresh-faced mothers and elder sisters clustering about 
me, and I had to let them look, too. And then, sud- 
denly, there was a scream of laughter, and I looked 
up to see Betty walking away down the dyke on a 
pair of stilts, with the ends of her veil fluttering out 
behind her — stilt- walking being one of the accom- 
plishments of her childhood. I never saw anyone so 



254 The Spell of Holland 

delighted as those women and children were! I dare 
say they are talking about it yet ! 

We went back, after that, to those quiet, cle^n, 
deserted streets, feeling strangely out of place among 
surroundings so mediaeval. Of all the towns we saw 
in Holland, I think Hoorn was the most picturesque 
and charming, next to Middleburg, and possibly Kam- 
pen. It is a direct survival of the seventeenth century. 
There is a cheese market held here every week, and 
a gay little weigh-house at one side of the square 
where the cheeses are displayed; but on other days, 
the town seems to be asleep, dreaming, perhaps, of its 
vanished greatness. 

Our host at Amsterdam had urgently advised us 
to make the trip from Hoorn to Enkhuisen not by 
train but by paard-tram, or horse-tram. He said the 
trip was one of the most interesting in all Holland, 
and so we found it. It is a journey by no means to 
be missed. 

The tram, a diminutive, four-wheeled car, drawn 
by a single horse and running on a narrow track, starts 
at the market-place, proceeds with much clanging of 
the bell through the town to the station, and then 
heads away for Enkhuisen, twelve and a half miles 
distant, along a paved road, shaded by trees, with 
beautiful little houses on either side of it. The car 
rolled on gently, stopping to take on or let off fre- 
quent passengers; the horse attached to it trotted 
along cheerfully, and was soon changed for another, 
three, I think, being used to accomplish the journey. 



Annexation of the " Chocolate-Drop " 255 

A horse is a great treasure in Holland — almost a 
curio — and is most tenderly cared for ; but, indeed, 
I think the Dutch are naturally kind to all animals. 

I have already remarked that, in Europe, there are 
as many things to interest one inside a tram or railway 
carriage as outside it. We found it so in this case. 
Solid, fresh- faced women, young and old, formed the 
majority of the passengers, and their interest in us 
was quite frank and undisguised. / Most of the women 
wore a style of headdress new^to us — a lace cap fit- 
ting tightly all around the head, and on top of it a 
queer little straw bonnet, turned up in front and lined 
with flowered silk. They were careful to give us 
plenty of room, even crowding themselves a little to 
do it; plainly enjoyed our interest in the beautiful 
country we were passing through, and smiled and even 
essayed a little conversation with us now and then. 

Betty was sitting at the front end of the car so that 
she could see out ahead, when a plump priest mounted 
the front platform and leaned his back against the 
window she was looking through. "There was con- 
sternation among the other passengers ; you never saw 
such dismayed faces. It was as though she had been 
offered a personal affront. The conductor had seen 
all this, he caught the imploring glances cast in his 
direction, and, stopping the car, ran around to the 
front platform and persuaded the priest to go back 
to the rear one. Everybody was delighted. Every- 
body nodded and smiled at us as the car proceeded. 
That window was not again obstructed! 



256 The Spell of Holland 

And it was as well, for we have never had such a 
trip as that one. This is one of the richest portions 
of all Holland, and the farmers' houses which front 
the road on either side, and which are continuous all 
the way from Hoorn to Enkhuisen, are really little 
villas, each with its own grounds, marvellously kept, 
and each reached by a little bridge. Most of the 
houses are painted a bright blue for a foot or two 
from the ground, perhaps with a special preparation 
to keep out the damp; above this, the fancy of each 
individual owner has full play, and such combinations 
of reds and greens and pinks and purples were never 
seen elsewhere. Each house has in front of it a row 
of trees trained in the form of a screen — just such 
aerial hedges as we saw before the houses along the 
river on the way to Gorinchem. But here we were 
close enough to see the perfection of these hedges — 
trees made to grow so flat that, with a spread of twenty 
feet, they would be not over a foot in thickness. 

Each house is surrounded by a little canal, and the 
elaborate bridge which crosses it from the road usually 
has a gate in the middle. The front doors of the 
houses look as though they were set with diamonds, 
so highly are the nail-heads polished; and knocker 
and knob shine like gold. Many of them are further 
ornamented with scrollwork in iron or brass, or with 
long hinges of most elaborate design. These front 
doors are, if possible, even more inviolate than those 
in the south of Holland. Only a death, or a wedding, 
or a christening, or some event equally important, justi- 



Annexation of the "Chocolate-Drop " 257 

fies using them and entering that holy of holies, the 
parlour. 

Here the fancy trimming of the edges of the thatch 
on the roofs reaches the limits of genius; and here, 
too, we saw such ornate summer-houses and dog- 
kennels and chicken-coops as we had never imagined 
existed, with carving and gingerbread-work and little 
cupolas, set so close together that they fairly jostle 
each other, reached by gravelled paths only a foot or 
so in width, and with gay lit9£ flower-beds in the 
unoccupied corners around them. They are painted 
to match the dwelling-house, and when there is any 
paint left, it is used on the trunks of the trees. 

As we rolled into Enkhuisen, we saw a man in a 
wide black hat with a long black crape streamer dan- 
gling from it, and a long black gown shrouding his 
body, knocking at a door, and we recognized the long- 
looked-for aansprecker — the dignitary who is hired 
to go about and break the news of a death, and tell 
the hour of the funeral, to the friends of the bereaved 
family. 

" Oh," I said, " if I could only get his picture! " 

But that seemed too much to hope for. 

However, as we got off the car, we came upon a 
group of three or four aanspreckers standing at a 
corner, comparing black-bordered lists in their hands; 
and I mustered up courage to approach them and ask 
if I might photograph them. I more than half expected 
to be repulsed, as one proposing a sacrilege; but, on 
the contrary, they smiled and nodded, and obligingly 



258 The Spell of Holland 

posed themselves — on condition that I send them one 
of the pictures — a condition to which I eagerly 
agreed. All the other passengers who had come on 
the car with us, as well as the inhabitants of the 
neighbouring houses, clustered around while this nego- 
tiation was in progress, and it was finally concluded 
only with the assistance of one of our fellow-passen- 
gers, a young lady who could speak a little Eng- 
lish. 

Well, more aanspreckers had been coming up all this 
while, and by the time everything was settled, there 
were eight or ten in the group. They spread out 
gravely before me, some volunteer helpers pushed back 
the crowd, and I snapped the picture; and then, in an 
agony of apprehension, lest I had forgotten something 
at the critical moment — for I was miserably nervous 
with all these people looking on — I took another, the 
aanspreckers having by this time increased to a dozen 
or more, and still others coming up every minute. 
Then the head aansprecker wrote his name in my 
memorandum book, so I would be sure to get the 
address right, and we thanked them and went on. The 
picture was duly sent and, I hope, duly received. 

We found quarters at " Die Poort van Cleve," a 
really old inn, rambling but beautifully-kept, with a 
staircase more than usually ladder-like. We were 
attended by a cherub-faced man of middle age, who 
showed us to our room, overlooking the broad haven, 
and took our order for dinner, and served it per- 
sonally, and a very good one it was! 



Annexation of the " Chocolate-Drop " 259 

After dinner I had quite a chat with him, for he 
knew English fairly well, and he told me that we 
were in great luck to get a picture of the aanspreckers, 
for there were only about twenty-five deaths a year 
in Enkhuisen, and hence the aanspreckers were out 
only about twice a month. The costume they wore 
that day was for a funeral of the second class. For 
one of the first class, they wear top-hats and frock- 
coats, with silver braid across the front. I saw this 
costume afterwards at Kampen,°and while perhaps 
more dignified, it is much less striking and pictur- 
esque than the flowing robes and wide hats of the 
inferior class. The aanspreckers, I understand, form 
a sort of close corporation, and their fees are pre- 
scribed by law. They are used also, sometimes, to 
announce births, in which event they deck their suits 
of black with white ribbons and rosettes to indicate 
the joyful character of the event they come to an- 
nounce. 

Enkhuisen is another Hoorn with its old houses 
and quiet streets and air of deserted antiquity. The 
houses, with their elaborate stone carvings and high 
stepped gables, are quite as picturesque as those at 
Hoorn. Enkhuisen does homage to the herring, from 
which much of its wealth was at one time derived, 
by showing three herrings on its arms, or " wapen." 
The fish lie horizontally, one above another, and this 
device was a favourite one with the stone-carvers. The 
houses are ornate inside as well as out, for the old 
skippers who voyaged to the Mediterranean used to 



260 The Spell of Holland 

bring back Italian marble in their holds for ballast, 
and many of the houses are paved with these precious 
parti-coloured slabs. Some of them, too, have their 
walls and fireplaces tiled with old Delft; and the fur- 
niture in them would turn an antiquarian green with 
envy. 

The stadhuis is a handsome, stone- faced structure, 
unusually interesting within. In the upper hall, which 
is paved with beautiful slabs of white marble, and 
which has a remarkable echo, the candelabra are sure to 
attract the visitor's attention. They are in the shape 
of four great arms thrust out from the walls, painted 
flesh colour, and holding up with much muscular exer- 
tion four tiny candlesticks weighing a few ounces 
each. Our guide, a pleasant man whom a ring at 
the door had summoned, made the echo perform for 
us, and showed us a few curios, among them a block 
and axe. The axe is dull and rusty, but the block, of 
dark oak, is kept furbished up to show the graceful 
carvings with which it is embellished — allegories 
from the New Testament, designed, no doubt, to 
soothe the last moments of the condemned as he 
placed his neck on the block and waited for the 
blow. 

Then our guide led the way into the council-chamber 
— another of those solemnly beautiful rooms in which 
the favoured city fathers of this land transact their 
business. The walls are hung with red Utrecht velvet, 
dating from 1692, but more beautiful, if anything, 
than when it left the loom. Fourteen chairs, uphol- 



Annexation of the M Chocolate-Drop " 261 

stered in tapestry, with the three herrings embroidered 
on the back of each, are ranged before a long table, 
on which gleamed as usual the pewter ink-wells and 
sanders. 

Next to this is the burgomeester's room, with a 
fine painting by Ferdinand Bol, and beyond a waiting- 
room draped with brown Utrecht velvet. There is 
an old picture there of a burgomeester, his wife, and 
six children, three girls and three boys. Our guide, 
with great glee, asked us to guess^hich were which; 
and when we were unable to do so, for they all looked 
exactly alike, except that the older ones were painted 
a little larger than the others, he showed us the clue. 
The burgomeester wore a square lace collar, and his 
wife a round one; and the artist, whose skill was 
unequal to differentiating the sexes in any more subtle 
way, painted the boys with square collars like their 
father, and the girls with round collars like their 
mother, and let it go at that. 

Back of this room, is a beautiful little chamber, at 
one time the meeting-place of the governing board 
of the municipal orphanage. Its walls are covered with 
Gobelin tapestry, and there is a handsome painting 
by Van Neck over the ornate marble mantel. 

The governing board, I suppose, now sits at the 
orphanage itself, the quaintest of buildings, with its 
high gables and stone ornamentation, and sculptured 
figures of two orphans, a boy and a girl, in elaborately 
coloured costumes, standing on the cornice of the front 
door. Inside, the building has remained unchanged 



262 The Spell of Holland 

for a century, with its rows of little snowy beds in 
the dormitories, and the rows of seats in the refec- 
tory, and everything as clean as soap and water and 
Dutch energy can make it. 

The Enkhuisen orphans dress like other children, 
for the people of the town very sensibly think it wrong 
to set them apart by a freak costume, as Haarlem and 
Amsterdam and other cities do. Enkhuisen is not a 
large place, numbering only about six thousand, and 
yet there are eight benevolent institutions in the town, 
as our host at the Poort van Cleve proudly informed 
us, to care for the sick, the destitute, and the aged, 
as well as for the orphans. Most of these were 
founded by some wealthy citizen in the days of the 
town's greatness, and all of them are well-endowed. 

The Westerkerk is worth visiting, if only to see 
the choir-screen. Moses, Joshua, and the Four Evan- 
gelists look down from above the cornice, and the work 
in the panels below is very delicate and graceful. The 
screen is dated 1742, and one of the panels is unfin- 
ished. Whether death stopped the hand of the carver 
or some accident interfered with the completion of 
the work I could not find out. The church itself 
is barren and empty, without transepts; but the 
grave-slabs which compose the pavement are carved 
with unusual richness. And the church is unique in 
having a high wooden bell-tower entirely detached 
from it. 

The town has shrunk far back from its old walls, 

an4 broad fields stretch in between the present tQWO 



Annexation of the " Chocolate-Drop " 263 

and the last of the old gates — fields that were at one 
time covered with houses. For in its heydey, this 
was a busy city of sixty thousand people. It possessed 
a herring fleet of seven hundred boats, of which not 
one remains. About a score of little boats still put 
out into the Zuyder Zee to fish for anchovies ; but no 
longer do Enkhuisen fishermen brave the ocean. 

At one time, the reputation of the Enkhuisen seamen 
was so great that the Emperor Charles V., and even 
his Dutch-hating son, would have no other sailors on 
their royal ships, doubtless esteeming their lives more 
safe in such hands than in lubberly Spanish ones. Yet, 
despite this royal preference, Enkhuisen was the first 
town in Holland to open its gates to William the Silent, 
and to take its stand with him in the struggle for 
Dutch independence. 

I sat for a long time after dinner that evening, 
loitering in the hotel office, talking to the chance arri- 
vals, and watching an interminable game of billiards, 
played on a table about half as large as the ones we 
use. Then I walked over to the harbour, dominated 
by the old double-humped Drommedaris tower, a 
relic of the ancient walls, not so light and airy as that 
at Hoorn, but enriched with a charming carillon, and 
flanked by a most picturesque huddle of red-roofed 
houses. The bells were ringing sweetly overhead as I 
sat down on the sea-wall and gazed out at the darken- 
ing water. 

The little fishing-boats were gliding one by one out 
of the haven for another night's work, and the horizon 



264 The Spell of Holland 

was dotted with the sails of those already at sea. 
The harbour lights gleamed dim, for a mist of rain 
was in the air, and sky and sea were pearly gray. It 
was a beautiful picture — and a saddening one. 



CHAPTER XIX 



FREE FRISIA 



It was a clear and sunshiny morning that we bade 
good-bye to the Poort van Cleve, after an excellent 
breakfast, at which the only other guest was a tobacco 
salesman. He denied, at first, that he could speak 
English, but after his first embarrassment wore off 
he spoke it fairly well, and ended by presenting me 
with a cigar from his stock. " I will gif you a good 
one," he said, and it was good. 

The cherubic landlord was presumably yet abed, 
but the landlady accompanied us to the front door 
to wish us a pleasant journey. Our railroad coupons 
from Hoorn to Enkhuisen had not been taken up, 
because we had elected to come by tram, and at the 
station we had quite an exciting argument with the 
gateman, before he would permit us to retain them; 
and even then, he took us before a superior for con- 
sultation before conceding us the right to keep them. 
We had many struggles after that to retain those 
coupons ; for they were in a book, and every gateman 
and inspector regarded our possession of them with 
suspicion. We didn't care much at first, but we soon 
grew determined to keep them, cost what it might; 
besides, it was worth something to see the expression 

265 



266 The Spell of Holland 

of surprised dismay which overspread each official's 
face when he opened the book and found those cou- 
pons there ! 

The boat from Enkhuisen across the Zuyder Zee to 
Stavoren runs in connection with the train, and there 
was quite a crowd on board that morning. Some of 
them were merchants going over to the Friesland 
markets, and some were hunters going after the Fries- 
land game, whatever it may be. 

As the boat steamed with us out of the harbour, 
we looked back at Enkhuisen with regret. From the 
sea, the tree-shaded quays looked unusually pretty, 
and we agreed in voting it one of the nicest towns 
we had seen. The morning was cool and bright, with 
little fleecy clouds hanging in the air, seemingly only 
a hundred feet or so above the water; and the water 
itself was of that peculiar translucent green-gray 
which one sees in Dutch paintings of the Zuyder Zee, 
and regards at first with suspicion, it looks so unlike 
any other water. There were few sails in sight, for 
the fishermen had hauled up their nets at dawn and 
were safe again in the haven. Once we sighted a 
steamer puffing away to Medemblik, and then far 
ahead appeared the roofs of Stavoren, peeping over 
the great dyke which shelters the town from the sea. 

Stavoren was once the residence of the princes of 
that Free Frisia which the Romans were glad to have 
as an ally, and later grew into a city of great com- 
mercial importance, with walls and towers, temples 
and palaces, so renowned that travellers came from 



Free Frisia 267 



distant countries to see them. She was one of the 
principal cities of the great Hanseatic league, and 
finally grew so strong that she broke her treaties with 
these allies, and even defeated an army brought against 
her by the powerful Count of Holland. But the tide 
turned; the port was silted up, trade went elsewhere, 
whole quarters of the town were destroyed by inun- 
dations which the inhabitants no longer had the energy 
to resist, then a great fire swept it; its hostile neigh- 
bours assailed it, and it was reduced to a sorry village. 
There are, I suppose, not over a hundred houses in 
the town now, and they are of the most primitive 
type. Sic transit! 

The old chroniclers attribute the decay of Stavoren 
to Divine wrath over a blasphemous act committed by 
a wealthy widow of Stavoren. Let me tell the story, 
since I suppose it must be told, in the words of 
Guicciardini : 

"There was a widow in the town so rich that of 
her wealth she knew not the extent, with the conse- 
quence that she became petulant and saucy. She loaded 
a ship for Dantzig, ordering its master to bring back 
in exchange for the merchandise which she sent the 
most exquisite and rare product of that region; and 
as the master of the ship, reaching Dantzig, found 
there no product more in demand than grain, he 
returned laden with it to Stavoren. This so dis- 
pleased the widow, that she ordered the wheat to be 
thrown overboard; which, being done on the instant, 
in that very place there arose so great a sandbank 



268 The Spell of Holland 

that the harbour was so blocked that no great ships 
could enter it; hence the bank is still called the Lady's 
Sand. Whence, little by little, the said town lost its 
staple, and its traffic and commerce decayed.'' 

The grain of truth amidst all this chaff is that the 
sandbank is, indeed, called the Vrouwensand. " People 
of that time," sagely observes M. Havard, " must have 
a very strange idea of Divine justice if they believed 
the ruin of a whole town a good way of punishing a 
widow ! " 

At any rate, the result of all this is that a city 
which was at one time one of the wonders of Christen- 
dom, is no longer worth stopping at, so we got on 
the train for Sneek — pronounced Snake — and were 
soon rolling along towards it through this most north- 
ern of Dutch provinces. The principal feature of 
the landscape are the immense houses, all built on one 
plan, and that a sufficiently peculiar one. As the win- 
ters here are wet and cold, the hay which is harvested 
to feed the numerous cattle cannot be left outdoors as 
it is elsewhere, but must be drily housed, and hence the 
houses are built to accommodate not only the family 
and the livestock, but the hay as well. That is to say, 
the walls are very low, with doors and windows in 
them in the family part, and smaller windows in the 
portion set apart for the cattle, and over these is 
reared a four-square roof, towering like a pyramid 
high into the air — thirty or forty feet is no uncommon 
height. It looks as though each man had tried to build 
a higher roof than any of his neighbours, and that its 



Free Frisia 269 



immense weight had crushed the walls deep into the 
wet ground. 

A visit to one of these houses is a great treat. The 
living-rooms are, of course, immaculately clean, usually- 
paved with tile, and with tiled walls ; and the quarters 
of the cattle are almost as ornate. Little white cur- 
tains are at the windows; the stalls are paved and 
spread with sand, and there is not a speck of dirt or 
suspicion of offensive odour. Thq tails of the cows, 
each of which has a stall to itself, are usually looped 
up to prevent them splashing themselves, and the cows 
themselves are scrubbed until they shine. Each of 
them has her toilet made for her regularly every day. 
In one corner is the room in which the cheese is 
pressed, this, too, as immaculate as all the rest, and 
with its copper utensils shining like gold. Those 
Friesland women must be constantly at work with 
brush and bucket. 

The fields were ful] of sheep and of those black- 
and-white Friesland cattle which are here seen at 
their best. The land is very low, and subject to fre- 
quent inundations. The Frieslanders are said to 
expect an inundation once in five years. 

It was market day at Sneek, and the square and 
streets adjoining were packed with people, who had 
driven in from the neighbouring farms in their one 
and two-seated carts, built very high, polished like 
pianos, and often ornamented with gold-tipped carv- 
ings. We had some difficulty in finding the market, 
for we inquired the way of a woman who was stand- 



270 The Spell of Holland 

ing in a doorway, and she did not seem to understand, 
though I said " Kaas markt," as plainly as I could. 
We found out the reason, afterwards, as I shall 
tell. 

The belles of Friesland are said to be the most 
beautiful in Holland; but we failed to see any who 
deserved that reputation. We did, however, see many 
examples of the quaint Friesland headdress — a gold 
or silver casque, fitting tightly over the head, and 
over this a little lace cap. Alas, that the head-dress 
does not stop there; but many of these women, envy- 
ing, I suppose, their sisters of other countries, mount 
on top of this lace cap a modern hat, trimmed with 
. flowers! Indeed, all over Holland we witnessed this 
phenomenon — the head-dress of the province, with 
a flower-laden bonnet atop of it. The effect may be 
imagined ! 

There are many legends to account for the metal 
casque, or " hoofdijzer," of the Friesland women. 
One is that it is intended to protect their skulls from 
the assaults of their lords and masters when the latter 
come home on market-day having partaken of schnapps 
too freely. Another is that it was devised to conceal 
a deformity of one of the Frisian princesses, and was 
at once adopted by all the other women who wanted 
to be in style. You may take your choice of these, 
or invent a third legend of your own. But there the 
casques are, gleaming in the sunlight like polished 
armour. They are often very valuable, and are the 
most treasured of heirlooms. They have this advan- 



Free Frisia 271 



tage over other headdresses, that they never wear out. 
Sometimes metal ornaments are added in front, at 
either side of the forehead, in the shape of spirals 
made of wire, or little plates of silver, and huge ear- 
rings are worn and coral necklaces and many other 
articles of adornment, the effect of which is almost 
oriental. 

Sneek is a clean and pretty town, with one of the 
most attractive water-gates I have seen anywhere, 
spanning a canal with twin arches, and with a slender 
tower at either side. There is a pretty little stadhuis 
in the French style; many clean canals, and friendly 
people ; but it is scarcely worth a visit. 

When we got on the train again, there were three 
men in the compartment; and when they heard us 
talking together, they asked us if we were English. 
We told them no, that we were Americans. They 
were delighted, and wanted to talk to us, to hear all 
about America and tell us all about Friesland. Then 
we understood why that woman at Sneek had not 
known what the " Kaas markt " was. For the Frisian 
language and the Dutch language are quite distinct. In 
fact, Frisian is the direct ancestor of Scotch, and 
Scotch cattle-merchants trade there without difficulty. 
It resembles English very closely, and many of the 
words are identical. Cheese is cheese, not " kaas," 
as in Dutch; and these fellow-travellers assured us, 
though here I thought I caught a twinkle in their eyes, 
that the dialect poetry of Robert Burns is greatly 
appreciated in Friesland. We had a most interesting 



272 The Spell of Holland 

talk with them until the train pulled into Leeuwarden, 
where we all got out. We saw one of them on the 
street afterwards and he tipped his hat to us, very 
pleased. 

Leeuwarden is the capital of Friesland, and numbers 
some thirty-five thousand inhabitants. It is more 
bustling and prosperous than most Dutch towns, and 
there were many people in the streets, as we wended 
our way up from the station — among them some 
Leeuwarden orphans, red above and black below. 
Amsterdam divides her orphans longitudinally; Leeu- 
warden divides hers horizontally. The boys wear a 
red coat and black trousers; the girls a red bodice 
and black skirt. I should like to see a collection, some 
time, of orphans from all over Holland. It would be 
a diverting spectacle. 

We wanted to see first, of course, the famous Frisian 
museum; and after asking the way two or three times, 
made a vain attempt to get into an ornate building of 
red and white brick, which looked as though it ought 
to be it. But the door was locked, and finally three 
or four people came out and told us that this was not 
the museum, but the " Kanselarij," or Chancellery, 
and that the museum was just around the corner. 

The Chancellery, though, was worth looking at, 
for a gayer, more decorative building, I have never 
seen. It was built about the middle of the sixteenth 
century as a law-court, and is now used as the pro- 
vincial library and record-office, being open to visi- 
tors only on certain days. The interior, which has 



Free Frisia 273 



been remodelled to suit the needs of its present use, 
is not worth visiting, but its exterior is most inviting. 
It is two stories high, and surmounted by the usual 
steep, dormered roof, broken by a stepped-gable, each 
step ornamented by a figure emblematic of good 
government, with Justice looking down from the top- 
most pinnacle. The beautiful stone balustrade guard- 
ing the steps which lead to the front door is embellished 
with four lions sitting rampant upon it, each holding 
a shield between its paws. 

At the museum, we found the custodian, M. D. 
Draaisma, very glad to show his treasures — samples 
of the gold and silver work for which Leeu warden was 
once noted; Frisian costumes of every degree of 
eccentricity; Roman remains which have been dug 
up throughout the province; a remarkable collection 
of porcelain; and all sorts of Dutch utensils. 

Among the curiosities preserved here are some 
very early Frisian tobacco pipes, for the Frisians are 
said to have been the first Europeans to use the weed. 
They certainly use it industriously enough now. And 
still another feature is a series of rooms arranged 
and furnished in the old Frisian manner, with tiled 
walls, floors of red and brown tiles, furniture gayly 
decorated in red and gold, and just such an old draped 
bed as you will see in Jan Steen's pictufes. There is 
also a little gallery of modern Dutch pictures, with 
a good Mesdag and a charming Israels. 

Outside of the museum, there are not many things 
of interest at Leeuwarden, for the town has been 



274 The Spell of Holland 

greatly modernized. The old walls have been torn 
down and converted into boulevards, and even the 
old gates have been destroyed. A canal occupies the 
place of the moat, and follows the angles and con- 
volutions of the old walls in a most amusing way. 
The weigh-house is a picturesque little square building 
by the side of a wide canal, but is now used as a 
fire-station. The stadhuis is comparatively modern, 
but has a wooden staircase with a finely carved bal- 
ustrade, and a most impressive old council-room. The 
walls are covered with Gobelin tapestry, and there 
is the usual long table for the councilmen, with the 
shining inkwells and sanders at each place, and, in 
addition, a pewter match-holder. Time was when at 
each place a long clay pipe, ready filled, was laid ; but 
the councillors are now expected to provide their own 
pipes and tobacco. Or perhaps cigars have displaced 
the pipes. 

Across the street from the stadhuis is the so-called 
royal palace, the residence of the Stadholders of Fries- 
land during the years that the country was a republic, 
and now the residence of the royal commissioner for 
Friesland. It looked so insignificant that we did not 
try to enter. 

We did not, in fact, see as much of Leeu warden as 
we might have done, for, at the recommendation of 
Mr. Draaisma, we hunted up the antique shop of Mr. 
A. C. Billings. We wanted a mangle — one of those 
flat, carved pieces of wood used to iron with, such as 
we had seen demonstrated at Marken; and Mr. Bil- 



Free Frisia 275 



lings had not only mangles, but so many other beauti- 
ful and interesting things, that we lingered there 
unduly. Betty was unable to resist a charming little 
silver tea-pot, one of the most graceful I ever saw, so 
we got it, and it formed a strange excrescence in the 
side of the " chocolate-drop " until we got to our lug- 
gage again at Brussels. We had tea out of that tea- 
pot to-day, and it brought Leeuwarden back to us as no 
pictures could. / 

It is curious to find the hatred of the French Revo- 
lutionists for everything royal reaching even this far, 
but so it did; for, after they had taken possession of 
the country and founded the Batavian Republic, in 
1795, they sent a delegation to Leeuwarden for the 
purpose of destroying the tombs of the old Stadholders 
of Friesland in the Leeuwarden Groote Kerk. The 
church is a large one, but, without these tombs, of no 
especial interest. 

I am inclined to think that the resemblance between 
Frisian and English has been exaggerated; at any 
rate, we found mighty few people who could under- 
stand our English. There is an old couplet, 

" Good butter and good cheese 
Is good English and good Friese." 

But, so far as we could tell, the resemblance stops 
there. Certainly I have listened to Frisians talking 
without being able to catch a familiar word, although 
there seemed to be a lot which were half- familiar. 
That is, at a distance where one could distinguish the 



276 The Spell of Holland 

sounds but not the words it seemed that the language 
was familiar; but the harder one listened, the less 
familiar it grew. 

Nor, so far as we could see, do the Friesland women 
deserve their great reputation for beauty. They are 
fresh and hearty, they look as though they would 
make the best of wives and mothers, real helpmates 
to any man; their features are regular, and all that; 
but they lack that suggestion of the spirituel which we 
Americans consider one of the requisites of beauty. 
They are a little heavy and stolid; I fancy that their 
brains do not move quickly. But this may be all 
wrong, and their apparent stolidity merely the defence 
thrown up against the evident curiosity of the stranger. 
There is always that danger in trying to judge a 
people without knowing them intimately. 

It was here at Leeuwarden that M. de Amicis 
had an improving conversation concerning the 
Frisian headdress with a lady whose maid was 
brought in for his inspection. I cannot forbear quot- 
ing a little. 

" The lady of the house rang a bell," writes M. de 
Amicis, " and there appeared a servant-maid wearing 
a lilac gown and a golden helmet. She was as tall as 
a grenadier, robust as an athlete, white as an angel, 
haughty as a princess. Planting herself before me, 
she stood with head erect and eyes cast down. Her 
mistress told me that her name was Sophia, that she 
was eighteen years old, and was engaged to be married, 
her casque being a present from her betrothed. 



Free Frisia 277 



" I asked what metal it was made of. 

" ' Of gold,' the lady answered, with a slight expres- 
sion of surprise at the question. 

" ' Of gold ! ' I exclaimed. ' Excuse me, but will you 
have the goodness to ask how much it cost ? ' 

" The lady questioned the maid, and then turning 
to me, said : ' It cost, without the chain and pins, three 
hundred florins.' 

" ' Six hundred francs ! ' cried J. ' Pardon me once 
more ; what is the young man's ^profession ? ' 

" ' He is a wood-sawyer,' answered the lady. 

" ' A wood-sawyer ! ' I repeated ; and thought 
regretfully of the size of the book I should have to 
write before I could rival the magnificence of this 
wood-sawyer. 

" ' They do not all have them of gold, however,' said 
the lady. ' The lover who has little money gives a 
silver casque. Poor women and girls wear casques 
of gilded copper, or very thin silver, which cost a few 
florins. But the great ambition is to have one of gold, 
and with this purpose in view, they work, and save, and 
sigh for years together. And as for jealousy, I, who 
have a maid with a gold casque, and a housemaid with 
a silver casque, can tell something about that.' 

The casques are made of plate so thin that they can 
easily be moulded to the shape of the head. Some- 
times they are composed of two halves, meeting in 
the middle of the forehead, and sometimes of a single 
piece, with a hole in the centre of the crown to give 
a little ventilation. In either case, the hair is entirely; 



278 The Spell of Holland 

concealed, and when too abundant, is cut off. But it 
is not usually too abundant, for the casque produces 
baldness, and this is one of the reasons why it is being 
discarded by the women of the better classes. But 
it is still generally worn by the peasants and farmers' 
wives. A tight black silk cap is put on first, under 
which the hair is tucked up, and then the casque is 
added, and finally a lace cap, with a frill which falls 
to the shoulders. Often, as I have said before, a 
modern be-flowered bonnet is set on top of all this, 
with an effect sufficiently startling. 

Leeuwarden is a pleasant centre from which to make 
excursions to a number of villages in the neighbour- 
hood, all of which are described most entertainingly in 
a little guide-book issued by the " Vereenigung tot 
bevordering von vreemdelingenverkeer," of Leeu- 
warden, and full not only of quaint English but of 
quaint legends of the neighbourhood. It quotes some 
Frisian poetry about Leeuwarden which confirms me 
in the opinion that the resemblance between English 
and Frisian is largely imaginary. The happy lot of 
the Frisian farmer is described, who " if the struggle 
for life does not weigh too heavily upon him, his must 
be a life happier than that of thousands of other 
people/' One might add that this is a proposition of 
universal application. 

We had thought of going on to Groningen, but 
inquiry developed the fact that it is too large and too 
modern — albeit it dates from the ninth century 
*■ — to be of interest, so we turned southward to Zwolle, 



Free Frisia 279 



through a country very different to the watery Fries- 
land. A beautiful avenue of old trees ran along a 
road at our left for miles; soon other trees appeared 
in clumps and groves; the fields were not traversed 
by canals nor cultivated as carefully as those we had 
heretofore seen in Holland. Then we passed through 
wide marshes and peat land ; with mowers working on 
every little strip firm enough to afford foothold, and 
with goats tethered along the railway and on little 
strips to eat the grass which was^ not worth mowing. 
For the first time in Holland, we ran through a long, 
deep cut, with the banks on either side clothed in 
broom. 

After Heerenveen, there were few houses, and the 
country was apparently very poor, with scarcely any 
cattle in the fields, and the hay only a few inches in 
height, — not worth mowing, one would think, and 
yet the mowers were busy getting it down, fairly shav- 
ing the ground in their anxiety to get it all. Men and 
women mere working in couples, raking it up and 
carrying it off to invisible houses on queer wagons, 
with the horse fifteen feet in front, and attached to 
the wagon with rope harness of the most primitive 
sort. And all around were stacked bricks of brown 
peat, which had been cut from little mounds on the 
surface of the ground. Peat is the principal product 
of this province of Drenthe, which, without it, would 
be little more than a succession of bogs covered with 
dwarf oak and pine. Of late years, some efforts have 
been made to convert the exhausted peat-fields into 



280 The Spell of Holland 

meadows and farm-land, but it is a task before which 
even the Dutch falter. 

The country grew gradually wilder and more 
deserted, as the train rumbled on. Nothing was to 
be seen on either hand but a wild and boggy solitude, 
with broad mounds here and there, which the ancient 
Celts or Germans heaped up to build their huts on in 
days before the land was protected with dykes from the 
inundations of Lake Flevo. Ancient remains are 
found all through here, proving that this country was 
at some distant time inhabited by Romans, by Huns, 
by Celts, and by no one knows what other mysterious 
tribes. The country itself looks dark and mysterious, 
and the customs of the people differ greatly from those 
of Western Holland. 

A few miles beyond Meppel, the train passes the 
old village of Staphorst, where the ancient Frisian 
manners and costumes are said to be religiously pre- 
served; and where the men so abhor idleness that, 
when they meet to consult concerning the affairs of 
the village, each man brings his knitting, in order that 
his hands may be always busy. We have entered the 
province of Over-Ijssel, and the country gradually 
assumes again an aspect of civilization, until we are 
once more in a land of tree-bordered roads, and red- 
roofed villages. 

Dusk was falling as we reached Zwolle; and after 
dinner at the Kaiserkroon, with its queer old winding 
staircase, and great, high-ceilinged rooms, we strolled 
about the clean and lively streets ; looking in the shop- 



Free Frisia 281 



windows, and chaffering for a box of wax night- 
lights, such as we had seen used most effectively in 
the halls of the Poort van Cleve at Enkhuisen. We 
had quite an exciting time getting them, as the girl 
in the shop had to take down practically the whole 
stock of goods before she found what we wanted. 
She was most good-natured about it, and two or three 
other customers insisted on waiting and helping her 
guess, until the matter was settled. I think it was 
a sort of picnic for all of them. c/ 



CHAPTER XX 



ZWOLLE 



The weather god was surely good to us in Holland ! 
One fine day followed another, with just an interlude 
of rain now and then to lay the dust and freshen 
things up. From which fact I would argue that the 
months of June and July are the best possible in which 
to visit the country — even without the strawberries ! 
Before that I am told the weather is apt to be cold 
and rainy, and later in the summer the canals grow 
offensive, at least in the larger towns. The temper- 
ature of June and July is perfect for sight-seeing, not 
so cold as to be uncomfortable, nor so warm as to be 
enervating. We found that a light wrap, such as a 
raincoat, usually felt very good. 

In Dutch, the letter w is pronounced like our v, so 
Zwolle is pronounced Zvolle. The next morning was 
bright and pleasant, but before sallying out we 
watched, from the windows of our room, an interest- 
ing exhibition of the Dutch love of cleanliness. Across 
the street from us, in front of a shop of some sort, 
was a sidewalk composed of black and white slabs, 
laid in pattern and artistically fitted together ; and 
this sidewalk, no doubt, was the especial pride of the 
wife of that shopkeeper and of her servants. At any 

282 



Zwolle 283 



rate, one of the servants — or perhaps it was the house- 
wife herself — was out scrubbing it with soap and 
water, and then wiping it dry with a cloth. And 
after she got the sidewalk scrubbed, she went on and 
scrubbed the cobbles of the street some distance out 
from the gutter, using an immense amount of water, 
which she dipped up from a cistern under the side- 
walk, through a round opening such as, with us, indi- 
cates a coal-chute. 

When we came out from breakfast, she was still at 
it, giving the sidewalk a few final touches, and I got a 
picture of her, which you will find opposite the pre- 
ceding page ; — a scene made more characteristically 
Dutch by the windmill towering above the trees at the 
end of the street. 

We went first to the morning marKet, a gay assem- 
blage of many-coloured vegetables under little tents, 
with white-capped women in attendance, and great 
piles of yellow carrots striking the predominant note. 
Carrots seem to be a favourite food all over Holland, 
perhaps because they are cheap, and the children eat 
them raw. When they get hungry and run to their 
mother for something to eat, instead of getting a 
slice of bread and jam, as with us, they get a raw 
carrot. They resemble American children, however, 
in that they take the carrot and sit down on the front 
step to eat it. 

The strawberries and red-raspberries at the market 
were especially luscious-looking ; but all the vegetables 
and fruits were attractive, their natural beauty being 



284 



The Spell of Holland 



enhanced by the tasteful way in which they were 
arranged. The arrangement of one of these stalls 
is, indeed, quite a work of art, and must take consider- 
able study, to say nothing of a great amount of time! 

At one side of the market, a number of milkmaids 
had stationed their little carts, with a can in either end, 
and the dog lying on the pavement beneath taking a 
nap, and were ladling out the milk to customers ; but 
their cans, instead of being of burnished copper, as in 
South Holland, were merely of painted tin. We 
came to the conclusion, after tasting milk all over 
Holland, that the big Frisian cows are remarkable for 
the quantity they give, rather than for its quality ; for 
the milk everywhere seemed thin and lacking in rich- 
ness. 

There is a Catholic church at Zwolle, with a beauti- 
fully-carved marble altar-rail, and especially impress- 
ive with its decorated pillars and High Altar and 
shrines about the walls after the white nakedness of 
the Protestant churches we had been seeing, and which 
we saw again as soon as we entered the Groote Kerk 
in the market-place. Groote Kerk, let me explain, is 
the generic name for the principal church of all Dutch 
towns; but all of the old ones were originally dedi- 
cated to some saint, the tutelary divinity of that at 
Zwolle being Saint Michael. But of course no Dutch 
Reformed church could be named after a saint; so 
they are now all " Groote Kerks " or " Nieuwe 
Kerks," or " Oude Kerks." When there are more 
than three churches in a town, and the above names 



Zwolle 285 



have been exhausted, they name the others from the 
points of the compass — Westerkerk, Oosterkerk, and 
so on. 

The one at Zwolle is a great Gothic structure of 
brick, without transepts, and with the aisles as high 
as the nave, or with three naves of equal height, if 
you prefer to put it that way. A few remnants of the 
old frescoing have been uncovered, and the koster calls 
attention with especial pride to the carved pulpit, 
dating from 1617, and one of the most elaborate we 
have seen anywhere. It is supported by a huddle of 
fantastic legs, and the rail along the little stair by 
which one mounts into it is a marvel of carving. He 
insisted that I go up in order to see it, but I was more 
interested in the effect of the huddled pews below, with 
the white walls back of them. 

The staircase in the tower is also pointed out with 
pride. It is a beautiful spiral, with the steps fitted 
together so cunningly that they support each other, 
without the usual central pillar, so that, looking up, one 
can see them winding around and around clear to the 
top of the tower. I dare say the builder of that stair 
was a proud man when he got it done and found it 
would hold together. 

The west end of the church is, as usual, shut off 
by a great organ. The koster led us up a broad flight 
of steps under it, and enjoyed our surprise when he 
opened a door and showed us into a handsome meeting- 
room for the vestry, or whatever the governing body 
of the church is called. On the wall is a tablet of 



286 The Spell of Holland 

stone in which are cut the names of all the pastors 
of the church, beginning in 1579, when it was taken 
from the Catholics and converted into a Protestant 
place of worship; and in the cases about the walls 
are all the church records, starting the same year. I 
wonder how many other Protestant churches can trace 
their history back so far ? The old fellow, in clacking 
wooden shoes, who showed us around the church, was 
certainly proud of it, and insisted that we inspect all 
its treasures. He saw that I carried a camera, and 
was not content until I had taken a picture of the 
pulpit which he thought so remarkable. You will 
find the picture opposite this page. 

The stadhuis is near-by, and contains, as most stad- 
huises do, an impressive council-chamber, with tapes- 
tried walls and tapestry-upholstered furniture. Vari- 
ous carved figures supporting the roof are said to be 
caricatures of the famous councilmen of Kampen, 
of whom we shall hear more, by and by. 

Zwolle is the capital of the province of Over-Ijssel, 
and is rather an important town, very pretty and very 
clean, but not especially quaint. It was the birthplace 
of Gerard ter Borch, but has none of his paintings; 
and Thomas a Kempis lies in the Catholic church of 
St, Michael — named for the old one which is Cath- 
olic no more — under a modern monument of marble. 
It was at the monastery of the Agnetenberg, about 
three miles away, where a Kempis lived for over half a 
century, that he wrote his " Imitation of Christ." 
Zwolle also has a link with America in the fact that 




THE PULPIT, GROOTE KERK, ZWOLLE. 



Zwolle 287 



Baron Capellen, who did so much to bring about the 
recognition of our independence by Holland at a time 
when such recognition meant a great deal to us, lived 
here, and the Holland Society of New York has 
recently marked his house with a bronze tablet. 

Like most other Dutch towns of a certain size, 
Zwolle has a little paard-tram which runs clanging 
along the streets from the station to the opposite out- 
skirts. We went out on this to its t<erminus, and then 
had a pleasant walk along a canal giy with water-lilies, 
to some old windmills used for grinding grain. I 
went into one of them, and found the apparatus to 
be most primitive. The sails are geared to a long 
beam which runs down through the mill, and to its 
lower end a short crossbeam is attached, at either end 
of which is a large mill-stone, set on edge, and resting 
on another great stone, which lies flat. As the sails 
revolve, the upper stones are rolled around and around 
over the lower one, on which the grain is spread, a 
little wooden rail keeping it from working off the 
edge. The flour which results is very coarse, as may 
well be imagined, but I fancy it is more nutritious 
and healthful than our own screened and bolted prod- 
uct. To look up and up into the dim vastness over- 
head is most impressive. 

I have said somewhere that the windmill is reputed 
to be one of the things brought back from Palestine 
by the Crusaders. If this is true, the Crusades were 
certainly well worth to Holland what they cost her; 
for the windmill has done more than anything else to 



288 The Spell of Holland 

develop the country. Indeed, but for her windmills 
pumping and pumping, Holland, as we know it to-day, 
would not exist. And the Dutch, who have more 
than average mechanical ingenuity, and who are never 
so happy as when they are employing it, have brought 
the windmill to a very high state of efficiency. Their 
greatest improvement is the movable top, by which the 
sails may be swung around to meet the wind from any 
direction; and after that, perhaps, the sails of canvas, 
which are spread on a light framework, and which 
may be reefed, so that the speed of the mill may be 
controlled, however hard the wind blows. 

There is almost always a balcony around the mill, 
about a third of the way up, and on this is a cogged 
rail in which a notched wheel works, by means of 
which the sails are adjusted to any angle, and then 
locked in position. If you will look at the picture 
opposite page 64, you will see what I mean, and see 
also how a mill looks with all sails furled. To spread 
the sails, a rope is pulled, which draws them out to 
the edge of the framework of the sail-arms, which you 
will notice in the same picture. Mills vary in size from 
mere toys rattling around in a low field and pumping 
the water out of a little ditch into another a few 
inches higher, to mammoth structures guarding a 
great polder and with room in the lower story for 
the family of the mill-master to live. There is a 
most impressive one near the Oostpoort at Rotterdam ; 
and a beautiful one near the canal on the way to 
Delft, which is the one shown in the picture I have 



Zwolle 289 



just referred to, and the reason the sails are furled 
is because that picture was taken on Sunday; still 
another of vast dimensions overlooking the Steen 
Straat at Leiden, which you will see opposite page 154, 
and as the wind was very strong at the time that 
picture was taken, the sails of the mill were reefed 
up a little. But to attempt to enumerate the big wind- 
mills in Holland is an absurd task. I was never weary 
of watching their great sails whirling about in the 
distance, looking for all the world as though they 
were walking across the country with seven-league 
boots. 

Just across from the Zwolle grist-mill is a soap- 
factory, where the oil is pressed from linseed to make 
glycerine soap. The proprietor was standing outside 
and I stopped to talk with him, while Betty wandered 
on along the canal in search of flowers. He was a 
graduate of the University of Leiden, and proud of 
his English, which was really very good. He was 
much interested to learn that we had seen the celebra- 
tion there, which he himself had not been able to 
attend. His face grew sad when he told me this, and 
I inferred that the soap business was not as prosper- 
ous as could be wished. I fail to understand, how- 
ever, how this could be, as I should imagine that 
the factories would be hard put to it to meet the de- 
mand. 

We made our way slowly back to the town ; watch- 
ing some great barges of peat getting emptied of 
their brown, brick-shaped cargo; looking in the win- 



290 The Spell of Holland 

dows, exchanging greetings with various and sundry 
people, and stopping to laugh at some school children 
playing among the trees about the Groote Kerk, so 
interested in their game — a game very much like 
our own hide-and-seek — that they did not heed the 
recall-bell, and the master had to come out to chase 
them back to their lessons. Then we went around 
to the hotel for the " chocolate-drop," bade good-bye to 
the proprietor, who accompanied us with many bows 
to the front door, and loitered along toward the sta- 
tion, stopping on the way for a look at the towering 
Sassenpoort, a Gothic gateway, once part of the old 
walls, with four tall towers with pointed roofs, and a 
central dominating spire, with a clock. This tower 
once possessed a peal of bells, but they were sold to 
the burgesses of Amsterdam, and placed in the tower 
of the Westerkerk there. To vex the thrifty council- 
men of Zwolle, the purchase-price was paid in copper 
money, and it took so long to count it that the fingers 
of the counters turned blue, from which fact the 
inhabitants of Zwolle are even yet nicknamed " blauw- 
vingers." This same Sassenpoort is said to have 
served as a trap to Charles Egmont, Duke of Guel- 
dres, who came one day to Zwolle, with his army 
back of him, determined to exact tribute from the city. 
The crafty Zwollenarens hoisted the outer portcullis, 
and as soon as the Duke rode under, dropped it again, 
and he found himself in a cage between the outer and 
inner gates. To save his life and regain his liberty, 
he was compelled to sign a treaty most favourable to 




THE SASSENPOORT, ZWOLLE. 



Zwolle 291 



the town, and to confirm it by giving as a hostage his 
eldest son. 

The old gate is now crowded all about by houses, 
and is used as a storehouse for the city archives. I 
took a picture of it, and a delivery-man who was 
gossiping with his best girl at a door near-by, brought 
her out to see me do it, and I let them look through 
the finder, and they were as interested and amused 
as children; and we parted with pods and smiles all 
around. ^ 

Soon afterwards, we were on the train for Kampen, 
rolling through a flat and fertile country, real Holland 
again, with men and women working together in the 
fields, tossing the hay about to dry, or loading it into 
the characteristic high-hipped, broad-beamed wagons, 
black without and blue within. The men wore scant 
knee-breeches, matching the inside of the wagons in 
colour. 

Then the train stopped, we emerged upon the plat- 
form, gave the " chocolate-drop " to the runner for the 
Pays-Bas, crossed the great bridge over the wide Ijssel, 
and were at last in famous Kampen — a town so 
remarkable that it deserves a new chapter. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE CITY FATHERS OF KAMPEN 

The Dutch have many proverbs. If they say of a 
man, " He comes from Boxum," they mean that he 
is a good fighter. (I suspect some relationship between 
Boxum and our word for a fistic contest!) If they 
say, " He comes from Urk," they mean that he is 
moody, fond of solitude, a hermit. If they say, " He 
comes from Kampen, ,, they mean he is a fool. 

How did Kampen get this reputation? No one, 
I suppose, will ever know; but all the foolish things 
that are done in Holland, or ever have been done 
there, are attributed to Kampen. 

For instance : 

The Spanish army was advancing upon Kampen 
and the villagers determined to save the town-bell, 
which the Spaniards always destroyed, whenever they 
entered a place, because it was a sort of emblem of 
liberty. So the bell was hastily loaded into a boat 
and rowed out into the Zuyder Zee and thrown over- 
board. 

" But hold," said one. " How shall we find it 
again? " 

" Fool," retorted another, " by marking the place 

292 



The City Fathers of Kampen 293 

where we threw it over," and he took out his knife 
and cut a notch in the gunwale of the boat. 

" How clever ! " the others murmured in admiration, 
and rowed back to shore well-satisfied. 

Or again : 

One night there was a fire at Kampen ; and when the 
little hand-engine was trundled to the scene, and an 
attempt made to start it, it was found to be out of 
order, so that the fire blazed away unchecked. The 
next night the town council i&et in special session, 
to consider the matter. There was much argument, 
accusations of carelessness, counter-accusations of 
neglect of duty, talk of trials and impeachments; but 
at last the burgomeester rapped for silence and arose 
to his feet. 

f Brother councilmen," he said, " it is worse than 
useless to waste time in lamenting the errors of the 
past. Our duty is to provide for the future. We 
must take care that never again shall we incur such 
disgrace as we did last night. Hereafter we must 
make sure that our apparatus is ready for every fire." 

" Yes — but how, how?" clamoured the council- 
men. 

" Very easily," responded the burgomeester, swell- 
ing out his chest. " You have only to adopt a reso- 
lution that, on the evening preceding every fire, the 
apparatus shall be thoroughly overhauled." 

He sat down amidst thunders of applause, and the 
resolution was passed forthwith. I presume it is still 
in force. 



294 The Spell of Holland 

It is in caricature of these councilmen that the gro- 
tesques on the Zwolle stadhuis were designed. But 
that may have been merely jealousy. 

The protective tariff idea had its origin at Kampen 
in this same council chamber, some hundreds of years 
ago, when one of the councilmen arose and announced 
that he had devised a plan whereby the city taxes 
could be entirely abrogated, and the expenses of 
adminstration exacted wholly from foreigners. This 
seemed too good to be true, and he was urged to 
explain himself. 

" It is very simple," he said. " We will place an 
officer at each of the city gates, who will collect a tax 
upon everything brought into the city. This tax will 
be regulated so that in time it will meet all our ex- 
penses ; and, as you can readily see, it will be paid, not 
by our citizens, but by the outsiders who bring in 
things to sell to us." 

(I seem to be writing a protective tariff speech of 
the type which the average spellbinder used so effect- 
ively twenty years ago, and which we have only 
recently outgrown.) 

The suggestion was adopted by acclamation, and the 
suggestor hailed as the greatest economist of the age. 
Officials were appointed to collect the tax; usually 
they were relatives or dependents of the councilmen, 
and the salaries were very liberal. An accounting 
system had also to be installed, with a superintendent 
and clerks and assistants; and, on the whole, the col- 
lecting of the tax gave profitable employment to a 



The City Fathers of Eampen 295 

surprisingly large number of people. There were 
some who grumbled at this, and who claimed that 
more people were employed than were really needed; 
but it was pointed out to these grumblers that the 
distribution of salaries added just so much to the 
prosperity of the town, since these salaries were after- 
wards spent for food and clothing and house-rent, 
and other things of the same sort; and so the larger 
the number of such salaries, the greater the town's 
prosperity. cJ 

Time passed, and the system seemed to be working 
very well. It is true that everything cost more in 
Kampen than elsewhere, but nobody knew just why. 
Least of all did the Kampeners suspect that it was 
really their money which the officials were collecting 
at the various gates, and that all the producers within 
the city had put their prices up to the level which 
the importers had to charge. So everything was 
serene and the councilmen, with the support and 
assistance of the tax-collectors, were all re-elected. 

Then came the great coup. Councilman X. an- 
nounced, one evening, that he had a project of the 
first importance to lay before the honourable body, 
and the burgomeester prayed him to proceed. 

" Gentlemen," he said, " it is now one year since 
our new system of taxation went into effect; and 
we have seen how admirable it is. We have been able 
to do away entirely with any tax upon our citizens. 
Of no other city in the whole world can the same 
be said!" 



296 The Spell of Holland 

" Hear, hear ! " cried the crowd outside the railing. 

" We have collected two hundred thousand gulden," 
proceeded Councilman X., " forty thousand at each 
of the five city gates. This sum has met all the ex- 
penses of administration; so that, as I have said, it 
has not been necessary to tax the people of this city 
one cent" 

" True! true! hurrah! " yelled the crowd. 

" I have now," continued Councilman X., looking 
about him with a proud glance, " to lay before this 
honourable body a proposition whereby our yearly 
income may be doubled." 

" Whoopee ! " yelled the populace. Even the coun- 
cilmen were excited. 

" We shall then," went on the speaker, " have the 
sum of two hundred thousand gulden to expend for 
the beautification of our already incomparable city. 
We shall give work to our poor, and homes to those 
too old to work; we can maintain a municipal band 
and give free concerts; we can enlarge our harbour 
and increase our commerce, for, by increasing our 
commerce, we increase our income; we can make this 
the best place on earth to live in." 

" But how," someone asked, " do you propose to 
double our income ? " 

" Very simply," said Councilman X. " We now 
collect forty thousand gulden at each of our five gates. 
I propose to double the number of gates, and thereby 
double our income." 

The people went mad. The plan was so easy, so 



The City Fathers of Kampen 297 

simple! Why had it never before occurred to anyone? 
But then it is the simple things which never do occur 
to anyone ! 

" But," suggested someone, " why not quadruple 
the gates and thereby quadruple our income? " i 

Councilman X. eyed the speaker sternly and shook 
his head. 

" No," he said. " We must not be avaricious !" 

And his fellow-townsmen recognized the fact that 
he had a great heart as well as^a great mind ! 

That council chamber remains to-day as it was 
then — a thing of beauty. We shall visit it presently. 

Kampen is a very ancient town, dating from the 
years when the Romans built a " camp " on the spot 
where the present city stands. This camp grew in 
importance with the passing years, as settlements at 
a river's mouth have a way of doing, and when the 
Zuyder Zee burst over the land and brought the com- 
merce of the world to its quays, it started upon a 
great career. But, alas, its harbour silted up, like 
all the others, it dwindled and shrunk, until it is 
now a quiet little place of perhaps twenty thousand 
— a gem of a city, for which there will always be 
a warm place in my heart. For its people are the 
kindest, and its old stadhuis the handsomest, and its 
costumes the quaintest, and the country round it the 
charmingest; and that old inn, the Pays-Bas, almost 
like home! 

" No man is so comfortable in an inn as he is at 



298 The Spell of Holland 

home," its proprietor said to me. " But we make him 
as comfortable here as we can." 

And it is very comfortable indeed. 

" Pays-Bas " divides with " Doelen " the honours 
of popularity as the name for a Dutch inn. I have 
already explained the derivation of *' doelen." " Pays- 
Bas," of course, means Low Countries, though why 
it should be expressed in French and not in Dutch 
I do not know. Many of us remember how most of 
the cities of this favoured land of ours at one time 
boasted a "United States" hotel. With us that 
fashion has passed, but it still persists in Holland. 

It is really the Rhine which you see flowing before 
you as you leave the station, although it is called the 
Ijssel; but this water which hurries by so swiftly has 
come all the way from Switzerland, past Mayence, 
and between the vineyards, and around the Lorelei, 
and so on past Cologne, until here it is hastening to 
its final plunge into the Zuyder Zee. It is very wide, 
and the bridge across it is a beautiful one, built for 
eternity. 

We followed our porter over it, and through the 
narrow streets beyond, shadowed by old buildings and 
great churches, past the stadhuis, and at last we came 
to the Pays-Bas and were made welcome. M. 
Breijinck, the proprietor of the Pays-Bas, is a de- 
scendant of one of those Huguenots who, driven from 
France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, fled 
to Holland as a country where they might worship 
God in any way they chose. In spite of the lapse 



The City Fathers of Kampen 299 

of centuries, M. Breijinck is still essentially a French- 
man. Perhaps that is the reason he makes so admira- 
ble an inn-keeper. 

At first, I noticed that he looked at us with great 
attention, and when, some time later, I was chatting 
with him in the billiard-room, he rather sheepishly 
got an envelope out of his pocket, extracted a printed 
circular from it, and passed it over for me to read. 

" I received that to-day," he said, and watched me 
while I read it. 

It was from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, of 
New York, and offered a reward of a thousand 
dollars for the arrest of an absconder who had got 
away from New York with a lot of money belonging 
to an express company, and who was supposed to be 
accompanied by his paramour. The description fitted 
Betty and me to the least detail, and there was a 
half-tone reproduction of a photograph of the ab- 
sconder which looked exceedingly like me. 

" Well," I said, laughing, " if I were you, Fd go 
tell the police. Remember, a thousand dollars — that 
is twenty-five hundred gulden — a sum not to be 
sneezed at." 

" No," he agreed, and regarded me for a while 
longer with puzzled eyes. Then his face cleared. 
" But I do not think you are the man." 

I let it go at that; but I secretly hoped he would 
tell the police. Perhaps he did; and they may have 
taken a look at us and decided that we had not the 
appearance of absconders. But this little contretemps 



r 



300 The Spell of Holland 

convinced me that, even for a journey in western 
Europe, it is as well to have a passport in one's pocket. 
And I have wondered since how many thousands 
of those circulars the Pinkerton people sent out. 
That one should have reached a place so out of the 
way as Kampen gave me a new idea of the thorough- 
ness of Pinkerton methods. 

The city walls of Kampen have long since suc- 
cumbed to the march of time, and their site is now 
covered with houses; but three of the old city gates 
still stand, as they did in the memorable days of the 
octroi, and handsome gates they are. One, a mag- 
nificent structure, with the arms of the province em- 
blazoned on either side of the arched gateway, opens 
from the market-place onto the quay; another, on 
the other side of the town, leads out, past a broad 
sheet of water which was the old moat, into green 
meadows; the third guards the road to Zwolle. 

Across the river, to the north of Kampen, lies a 
region of market gardens, and every morning, across 
the bridge, come the little carts, dozens of them, 
pushed by wide-skirted, white-capped women, and 
heaped high with the nicest-looking vegetables you 
ever saw. It is a perpetual delight to watch the bar- 
gaining for their contents, as they are pushed from 
door to door, for Dutch housewives are the most 
careful of purchasers. Then, by mid-afternoon, the 
chaffering is done, and the women push the empty 
carts homeward again, their feet dragging with 



The City Fathers of Kampen 301 

fatigue. What the men do I don't know. Perhaps 
they stay at home and look after the garden. 

And it is at the hour when the carts are going 
homeward across the bridge that the milkmaids start 
out for the fields south of the town, where scores 
and scores of black-and-white cattle graze. These 
women, most of them quite young, wear a wooden 
yoke across their shoulders, and from each end of 
it dangles a can, capable of holding about six gallons. 
Once in the fields, they go frdhi cow to cow, each 
girl, I suppose, being responsible for a certain num- 
ber; and then, when the cans are full, they trudge 
back to town carrying them, their hands on their hips, 
which rise and fall under the load. Frequently they 
have to walk three or four miles to get to the cows; 
I have seen them striding across the fields until they 
were mere specks in the distance. 

One wonders why a wagon is not sent out to bring 
in the cans, and so save these girls this terrific labour, 
of a kind peculiarly trying to women; but even when 
they get back to town, their work is not done, for 
they trudge from door to door, delivering the fresh 
milk to customers, and then go on to the cheese- 
factory with what remains unsold. I suppose they 
make the same trip in the morning, but I was never 
up early enough to see them. And never have I seen 
the cans carried in a cart, but always slung from the 
girls' shoulders. 

The Kampen costume is picturesque and striking. 
Full black skirts spread out from the hips, and fall 



302 The Spell of Holland 

to a little below the knee, with a shorter dark-brown 
overskirt. The upper garment is made very close 
and scant, and straight up and down. The head- 
dress is either a tight little black cap with a broad 
band of nickel or silver across the back of the head 
and coming down against either cheek almost to the 
corners of the mouth, finishing there in a little wire 
spiral; or it is a cap of white lace with a tail to it, 
which is stiffly starched and sticks straight up behind. 
You will see this costume in the photograph opposite 
this page, and in the background is one of the old 
city gates, and our host, M. Breijinck, stands on the 
sidewalk with his hands in his pockets and a broad 
smile on his face. 

These are the every-day caps. For ceremonial 
occasions there is another, with a long and sweeping 
tail which falls over the shoulders, and frequently, to 
heighten the effect, a bonnet full of artificial flowers 
is set atop it; or sometimes just a big wreath of 
artificial flowers. 

We were at Kampen so long, and so few things 
happen there, that, we became familiar figures on its 
streets, and most of the people got to know us, and 
made it a point to nod and smile to us whenever we 
passed. We bought one of the turn-up caps one 
night of a delightful old woman, who insisted on 
showing us her entire stock — and most beautiful it 
was. Then Betty decided that she must have a pair 
of wooden shoes, and a great time she had getting 
a pair to fit. They were of willow, wonderfully light 




STREET SCENE, KAMPEN. 




MARKET-WOMEN AT KAMPEN. 



The City Fathers of Kampen 303 

and made by hand. They cost something like fourteen 
cents of our money; and how anyone could make a 
living out of them at the price I have never been 
able to understand, for they must have taken the best 
part of a day to make. Packed in the " chocolate- 
drop/ ' they added two more excrescences to its already 
eccentric contour. 

One day, when we were going along the street, 
we saw a group of peculiarly distressed-looking chil- 
dren staring in at a pastry-cook's window, their fingers 
in their mouths, and discussing, I suppose, what would 
happen if they were told to help themselves. They 
looked so wistful that we could not resist the tempta- 
tion to play Santa Claus; so we stopped and told 
them to pick out the cakes they liked best. They 
were too astonished, at first, to understand; but 
finally they indicated a pile of cakes covered with a 
particularly deadly-looking green and red and yellow 
icing. I went in and bought one for each of them; 
and Betty passed them around, and they took them 
with staring eyes and trembling hands. 

" Dank u well, mevrouw," they said ; " dank u 
well, mynheer;'' and then they began to lick the 
icing off very carefully, in order to make it last as 
long as possible! 

All of which may seem very trivial; but it is just 
such little incidents which make a trip delightful. 



CHAPTER XXII 



MORE ABOUT KAMPEN 



The jewel of Kampen is the raadhuis, or townhall, 
one of the most delightful buildings in existence any- 
where — delightful inside as well as out. A modern 
addition has been built to it, where the city officials 
now have their offices, so that the old building re- 
mains as it was when first erected nearly four hun- 
dred years ago. Indeed, parts of the building are 
two centuries older than that; for the present struc- 
ture is a remodelling of the fourteenth century one, 
destroyed by fire in 1543 — eighty-seven years before 
the Pilgrim Fathers stepped ashore on Plymouth 
Rock! 

The fagade is very interesting. Between the upper 
windows are six old statues, saved from the first 
building and remarkably well preserved — a queer 
hodge-podge of real and ideal characters, for two of 
them represent Alexander the Great and Charlemagne, 
while the others typify the four virtues of Brotherly 
Love, Moderation, Fidelity, and Justice. Each is 
life-size, and each stands under a graceful Gothic 
stone canopy. In the centre of the upper story is 
an iron cage in which criminals were exposed to the 
gaze of the populace assembled in the street below. 

304 



More About Kampen 305 

There is a heavy cornice of carved stone across the 
front, and the end gable is very elaborate indeed. 
On the other side is a graceful bell-tower, leaning 
away from the building and very much out of plumb. 

The hall of justice or council-chamber on the upper 
floor is undoubtedly the finest apartment of the kind 
in Holland. Around the walls are richly-carved oak 
stalls, almost black with age, separated by pillars and 
surmounted by splendidly-carved entablatures. Here, 
each in his own stall, the members of the municipal 
council sat and discussed the affairs of Kampen, in 
those dark days when Margaret of Parma was 
Regent of the Netherlands, and in the still darker 
ones when Alva was ravaging the country. From 
that bell-tower at the back rang out the news that 
the Spaniards had been forced to flee from Leiden, 
from Enkhuisen; that the battle of the Zuyder Zee 
was won; that Brill had been taken by the Water- 
beggars; and, finally, that the Dutch Republic had 
been born ! Yes — and here it was that Councilman 
X. made his famous proposal to double the number 
of the city gates! It was on the wall without that 
an elaborate gilt sun-dial was placed; and then, by 
resolution duly made and seconded, covered by a 
canopy to protect it from the sun and rain ! 

The room is divided into two parts by a high oak 
screen, handsomely carved. Outside this, the populace 
assembled, and the advocates, when there was a case 
to be tried. The councilmen, who also, on occasion, 
acted as judges, occupied the stalls within, and the 



306 The Spell of Holland 

advocates addressed the screen, so that the judges 
might sit and deliberate — or perhaps go to sleep! — 
free from prying eyes. Only the disembodied argu- 
ment reached them. There was no searching of eyes, 
no pointing of accusing fingers. At how great a dis- 
advantage would our modern advocates have laboured 
under such circumstances ! 

The chief ornament of the inner chamber is a great 
chimneypiece of carved sandstone painted gray, reach- 
ing to the ceiling. It is to other chimneypieces what 
Dutch monuments are to other monuments. Nothing 
more elaborate could be imagined, for the artist, one 
Jacob Kolyn de Nole, utilized every inch. Two 
sphinx-like caryatides, one male and one female, 
support it. On one side of the frieze, Solomon pre- 
sides at the distribution of the baby; on the other, 
Caius Mutius is calmly burning off his right hand 
in a brazier to show Lars Porsenna that he does not 
fear his tortures. On the cornice above the frieze 
five or six cherubs sit ; above them, two lions hold the 
standards of the Netherlands over the figure of 
Charity suckling the stranger baby, while Faith and 
Hope look on approvingly from either side. Still 
higher, Fortitude and Prudence gaze up at Justice, 
seated in the apex with her scales before her. The 
pediment bears the date 1545. The carving is exqui- 
sitely done, and is without disfigurement of any kind. 

To the right of the chimneypiece is the " schepen- 
gestoelte," or double chair for the chief judges, 
wonderfully carved and reached by a flight of steps. 



More About Kampen 307 

A cherub on the corner of the mantel looks down at 
it, with hand lifted as though in benediction. Over 
the entire room is a massive oak-beamed ceiling, with 
some of the old gilding still discernible, and the whole 
effect is one of unparallelled richness and dignity. 

The aldermen of Kampen no longer use this room 
for their deliberations, but another, almost as beauti- 
ful in its way, in the newer portion of the building. 
They sit about a great horse-shoe table, the burgomees- 
ter at the head, and nine councilmen on either side 
of him, with the clerk at a little table inside the horse- 
shoe. And on the table before each chair is the usual 
big pewter inkwell, and a pewter sifter to sift sand 
over the writing and so blot it — a method which 
I believed too picturesque to endure anywhere on this 
prosaic earth. 

I created quite a commotion at the raadhuis by 
asking permission to climb the bell-tower in order to 
inspect the mechanism by which the chimes are rung. 
There was hurrying to and fro, conferences in an 
inner room with a dignitary whom I suppose to have 
been the burgomeester ; and, finally, a long explana- 
tion was made me why the request could not be 
granted. My Dutch was much too limited to enable 
me to catch the import of the explanation; but they 
were all so sorry and embarrassed about it, that I 
ended by becoming embarrassed myself, and apolo- 
gized for having suggested such a thing. 

We left the raadhuis most regretfully, — I hope 
to see it again, some day! — and proceeded to the 



308 The Spell of Holland 

Groote Kerk, or St. Nicholas Kerk, a great Gothic 
structure, one of the most important in the Nether- 
lands. We tried the various doors and found them 
all locked; and then a nice-looking old man ran out 
to us from one of the neighbouring houses, and said 
that the koster lived some distance away, and he 
would send for him. He escorted us across the 
square to his own house — which his wife was scrub- 
bing. We waded through the water flowing through 
the vestibule and over the pavement, and they both 
made us sit down in their best room; and then the 
little man ran out and stopped a passing peddler and 
sent him off after the koster, and then came back 
and sat down and tried to talk with us. 

Such friendly people they were; and the old lady 
ran and got an atlas, so that we could show them 
where we had come from and where we were going; 
and when they found we were from America they 
were astonished and delighted. It was all very pleas- 
ant and exciting, and we were almost sorry when 
the peddler came back with the koster, who was a 
woman, and had evidently donned her good clothes 
in haste, in honour of the occasion. 

The church of St. Nicholas, which dates from the 
fourteenth century, is a most imposing edifice — a 
testimony to the old-time greatness of Kampen. The 
nave is very lofty, there are double aisles — a rarety 
in Dutch churches, as is also the ambulatory, with 
its radiating chapels. The pillars of the choir instead 
of being round, are clustered, while those of the nave 




LOADING THE HAY. 




HAYMAKERS NEAR KAMPEN. 



More About Kampen 309 

are square. The clerestory windows are unusually- 
high, with fine geometrical tracery. A beautiful 
stone screen separates the choir from the ambulatory; 
but, like all the rest of the interior, it is whitewashed 
to within two or three feet of the ground, and from 
there down painted a shiny black — with tar paint, I 
suppose, to keep out the moisture. In an urn on the 
wall is the heart of doughty Admiral de Winter, who 
died at Paris in 1812, but directed that his heart be 
sent back to be preserved in the city which he loved. 

The pulpit is not of wood, but of stone, painted gray, 
with the carving touched with gilt. The west end is, 
as usual, blocked by an elaborate organ, with white 
figures surmounting it. Altogether, the church is one 
of the most interesting we visited in Holland. The 
koster took us around most patiently, and was dis- 
proportionately grateful for the small tip we gave her. 

We spent that afternoon in exploring the environs 
of Kampen, first across the Ijssel bridge, along a road 
shadowed by a double avenue of noble oaks, and 
through the market-garden land beyond; then back 
across the town, and through the many-towered gate 
on the other side, and so on into the beautiful graz- 
ing country. Betty went back to the hotel to write 
some letters, presently; but I wanted to get some 
pictures, and walked on and on. Avenues of trees, 
marking roads, crossed the country in every direction, 
separated from the fields on either hand by little 
ditches full of water; and the fields were, of course, 
divided from each other in the same way ; and these 



310 The Spell of Holland 



ditches were bright with water-lilies, and yellow flags, 
and their banks were gay with many kinds of flowers.' 
My first picture was of a group of haymakers, two 
men and a young woman, loading hay into a high- 
sterned wagon. Then I came upon an old and 
weatherbeaten farm-labourer seated on a bench at the 
roadside, and took his picture, much to his amusement. 
He had a basket strung at his back, like a knapsack, 
with his worldly goods in it, I suppose, and his face 
was one of the most humourous and characteristic 
I have ever seen. Life had beaten and twisted and 
gnarled him; but it had not soured him. That is 
what I call a victory. 

A little further on, three haymakers, two old men 
and a girl, attracted my attention; so I climbed around 
a gate and walked over to them; and when they saw 
my camera, they laughed and fell into a pose so 
natural and unstudied that I snapped them on the 
instant. I had a pocketful of cigars, as usual, and I 
begged each of the men to accept one, which they 
did with profuse thanks. I also offered one to the girl, 
but she shook her head violently, and they all seemed 
to think it an immense joke. 

A little farther on, the road branched, and, as I 
neared the fork, I saw a wagon loaded with hay 
coming along the other road between the trees, so 
I hurried forward and got a picture of it, and a 
very good picture I think it, with the feathery trees 
in the foreground, and the long avenue away in the 
distance. You will find the picture opposite this page, 




BRINGING IN THE HAY NEAR KAMPEN. 





^M Wj 






,'■■ I 

diilfwi" I , 





A SINGLE SLENDER TREE . . . WORTHY OF HOBBEMA.' 



More About Kampen 311 

and I want you to look at it, for it not only gives 
an idea of how these interminable avenues of trees 
look, but it also shows the flatness of Holland. Note 
how those distant trees stand out against the sky, 
and how you can see the sky between the trunks. 

I followed the branch of the road taken by the 
hay-wagon, and came presently upon a little farm- 
stead nestling beside the road, with a clump of trees 
behind it, and a single slender tree in front, worthy 
of Hobbema. I want you to lo&k at that tree in the 
picture opposite the preceding page. Then, on the 
other side of the road, you will notice one of the hay- 
ricks of which I have spoken, with its pointed roof 
of thatch, and the four poles upon which it is hoisted 
as the hay is packed in beneath it. 

Just after I had taken this picture, a milk-maid 
trudged around a turn of the road, with her yoke 
on her shoulder and the great milk-cans swinging 
from it. I snapped her, too, after she had passed 
me; and began to be a little intoxicated at my good 
fortune in getting so many characteristic photographs. 

Some distance back along the road, I had noticed 
a foot-bridge leading over the roadside ditch, evidently 
placed there for the convenience of the milkmaids 
coming from the town. So I went back, and camped 
out beside it, and waited for some to come along. 
A boy appeared presently, with yoke and cans; but, 
as soon as he saw me, his interest in milking vanished, 
and he hung around, and I tried to talk with him, but 
without success. He wanted me to take his picture, 



312 The Spell of Holland 

but I told him I wanted a girl, not a boy, and that my 
supply of films was limited. Then we saw a milk- 
maid approaching down the road, and I snapped her 
as she crossed the bridge. When I developed the 
film, I found that the boy had followed along after 
her, and was in the picture, too. 

One other photograph I wanted, and that was of 
a girl tucked away under a cow milking, — just such 
a picture as Anton Mauve loved to paint. Most of the 
girls had trudged away out of sight across the fields; 
but I presently came upon one in the desired attitude; 
and when she saw me, she laughed and ducked her 
head. But that picture was a failure, for I lost my 
nerve at the critical moment, and failed to get all the 
cow on the film. However, I got a much better one 
afterwards, near Middleburg, as you shall hear. 

The milkmaids were coming out in force, as I 
turned back along the road to Kampen; and one 
up-to-date one was riding a bicycle, with her milk- 
cans tied on in front. She had kilted up her skirts 
to keep them away from the wheels, and the effect 
of her big wooden shoes on the pedals was very comi- 
cal. It was, if I remember rightly, a man's wheel, 
and how she got on without dropping a shoe I can- 
not imagine. I should have liked to see her mount, 
but that pleasure was denied me. 

We spent that evening walking about the town. 
The streets were full of quaintly-garbed people; the 
shop-windows shone more brightly than ever; from 
the darkened cafes came the hum of talk and the 



More About Kampen 313 

rattle of glasses; and always in the air overhead 
was the soft carillon from the towers, borne on the 
fresh, sweet breeze from the Zuyder Zee. Oh, yes; 
I hope again, some day, to stroll along those streets! 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE HERMITS OF THE ZUYDER ZEE 

" There are two places we must not miss," I said, 
as we sat at home planning the trip. " One is 
Kampen — " 

Betty nodded. 

" Yes," she agreed, " where all the funny stories 
come from — " 

" And the other is Urk," I concluded. 

" What is Urk? " Betty questioned. 

" Urk," I said, " is this pin-point of land out here 
in the middle of the Zuyder Zee," and I indicated the 
spot on the map of the Netherlands spread out before 
us. 

Betty looked at it skeptically. 

" It doesn't seem much of a place," she said. 
" What's to be seen there? " 

"That's just it," I said triumphantly. "Nobody 
knows." 

I had, indeed, been seeking information about Urk 
for some time, and with very poor success. Cyclo- 
pedias do not mention it; gazetteers state only the 
obvious fact that it is an island in the Zuyder Zee; 
even Baedeker gives it but a meagre line, and I am 
forced to conclude that Urk is one of the few places 

314 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 315 

where M. Karl has not been. Dutch travel-books 
refer to it with disconcerting vagueness, and one is 
tempted to believe either that their authors have never 
seen the island, or have gained such knowledge as 
they possess in the few minutes which the little steamer 
from Enkhuisen to Kampen spends at its wharf. 
There is one exception. M. Henri Havard tells about 
Urk at some length; but even he leaves many things 
to be desired — besides, that was forty years ago ! 

" We'll be breaking new %found," I went on. 
" Nobody ever goes to Urk. So we'll go ; and we'll 
stay long enough to see the place thoroughly." 

To all of which Betty cordially assented, lured on, 
I think, more by the sense of venturing into the 
unknown than by the expectation of really seeing 
anything of interest. 

So it came to pass that, having explored Kampen, 
we one day told M. Breijinck of our wish to visit 
Urk. He looked at us queerly. 

" It is a journey," he said, " which few strangers 
make." 

" That," I pointed out, " is one reason we wish 
to make it. Indeed, the journey to Kampen seems to 
be one that few strangers make." 

" Yes," he assented sadly, looking about the empty 
dining-room, " that is true. But we are at least in 
the world. Urk is different. Its people live by them- 
selves out there in the water like hermits; they see 
no one; they wish to see no one; the women, many of 
them, live and die there without once seeing the main- 



316 The Spell of Holland 

land. Monsieur and Madame might not be regarded 
with friendly eyes." 

" Oh," I said, " as to that, we must take our chance. 
Now tell us how we are to get there." 

So, seeing that these pig-headed Americans were 
determined to have their own way, he told us. A 
little steamer runs daily from Kampen to Enkhuisen 
and back again, touching at Urk on the way. It 
reaches the island at 8,30, and, on the return trip, 
stops there again late in the afternoon. By taking 
this boat, we would have about seven hours in which 
to see Urk. 

" You think that will be sufficient? " I asked. 

" Monsieur will find it more than sufficient," he 
assured me. 

And he was right. 

A knock at the door awakened us at dawn, and we 
dressed with the feeling that we really were sacrifi- 
cing something to the cause of learning. Our hot 
water was at the door, and when we descended to 
the dining-room, we found an excellent breakfast 
awaiting us, with our host in person to serve us and 
to wish us God-speed. I apologized for getting him 
out of bed so early; but he said he didn't mind, and 
I could tell by his manner that he considered it his 
duty to see us forth upon this desperate expedition. 
He bade us good-bye and watched us down the street, 
and I had an uncomfortable feeling that perhaps we 
were doing something foolish. 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 317 

The little boat, the " Minister Havelaar," was 
puffing at her quay in the Ijssel, and our advent occa- 
sioned considerable surprise. There were three pass- 
engers besides ourselves, a young man and woman, 
and an old Dutch vrouw, white-capped and many- 
skirted, who descended into the cabin, slipped off her 
shoes, and went immediately to sleep on one of the 
benches. Promptly at 6.45 the boat cast off and 
headed down the river. 

The Ijssel is dyked on either side with solid 
masonry, the dykes running far out into the Zuyder 
Zee, I suppose to protect the river-mouth, and just 
at the end of one of them is a little lighthouse. Long 
before we reached the Zuyder Zee, we could see it 
curving up above the land, dotted with red-sailed 
fishing-boats, and we appreciated as never before the 
hollowness of " Hollow-Land.'* 

The captain came around, presently, bringing us 
tickets to Enkhuisen. He was visibly astonished when 
he learned that we wanted to go, not to Enkhuisen, 
but to Urk. In fact, he could scarcely believe it, and 
had to be assured and re-assured that Urk was really 
our destination. He produced the tickets, finally, and 
I paid him; a florin and a half, or sixty cents, for 
the round trip. 

As soon as we were fairly straightened away down 
the river, the crew, consisting of an engineer and 
deck-boy, came aft and sat down on a pile of rope 
and ate their breakfast — a dark-looking kind of cake 
washed down by many tinfuls of black coffee. And 



318 The Spell of Holland 

just as they finished, we rounded the end of the 
dyke, passed the lighthouse, and headed out into the 
Zuyder Zee. 

The day was bright and warm, with little wind, 
so that the water had only a slight swell; but it is 
sometimes swept by violent storms which render it 
dangerous. It is quite shallow, and I am told that 
a strong wind scoops the water up into short and 
precipitous waves, difficult for a small boat to live in. 
I have never seen any other water of just that colour, 
a translucent, pearly gray. Nearest to it is the stream 
that runs down from the glacier at Grindelwald. 

At the end of an hour, a dark spot appeared on the 
horizon, which gradually resolved itself into a huddle 
of red-roofed houses, grouped behind a dyke; and 
at 8.30, we ran into a somewhat complicated harbour 
and tied up at the pier. There was a crowd of people 
waiting, for the arrival of the boat is the one event 
of the day at Urk, and they stared at us, as we went 
ashore; more curiously even than we stared at them. 

The costume of Urk has no especially noteworthy 
feature. The women wear a multitude of skirts, 
which give them great breadth of beam. The skirts 
end some inches above the ankles, and truth compels 
me to add that the ankles are anything but shapely. 
The upper part of their dress consists of a closely- 
fitting waist, which represses all curves and which is 
always elaborately embroidered. During the week 
it is protected by an over-covering of linen, also 
embroidered. 




THE COSTUME OF URK. 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 319 

Their sleeves end just above the elbow, and from 
there down, their arms, exposed ceaselessly to all 
sorts of weather, are baked by the sun and frozen 
by the cold to a dull, repulsive, and most painful- 
looking purple. I am told that the women are proud 
of this colour, because, I suppose, it proclaims them 
to be good workers. They wear a close-fitting little 
cap of lace, under which the hair is tucked, except for 
a protuberant bang in front. On week-days the cap, 
also, is protected by a linen coV^r, and the front of 
the skirt is protected by an ample apron, with a queer 
inset of embroidery at the top, something after the 
Marken fashion. 

The men wear baggy trousers, which end about 
midway between the ankle and the knee, and which 
are often so patched that little of the original material 
remains. The jacket is dark and close-fitting, with 
two rows of buttons down the front and sometimes 
large embossed buttons at the waist — of silver or 
gold, occasionally, heirlooms handed down from 
generation to generation, though these are much rarer 
here in poverty-stricken Urk than elsewhere in Hol- 
land. The jacket is buttoned inside the trousers, and 
has wide lapels which are buttoned back against the 
shoulders. Heavy knit stockings and wooden shoes 
are worn by men, women and children, alike. 

As we walked up into the village, we heard a bell 
ringing not far away, ana the children dragging from 
every direction toward the sound told us what it was. 
We had never seen a Dutch school, so we followed 



320 The Spell of Holland 

along, and soon became the centre of an animated 
group, which grew to a crowd as we reached the 
school-house. They thronged about us, staring into 
our faces with wide-open blue eyes, touching our 
clothes with inquiring fingers, and the girls, in par- 
ticular, seemed greatly interested in Betty's hands, 
which they would hold and stroke, and then go off and 
drag up other more bashful girls to do the same thing. 
For a long time, we did not understand. Then Betty 
took off one of her gloves, and there was a sensation. A 
lady with a removable skin! For so they evidently 
regarded her. 

The excitement grew to such dimensions that finally 
one of the teachers came over to see what the trouble 
was, and, discovering two strangers, hurried away and 
brought the head-master. This gentleman introduced 

himself as Mr. I . He could speak English 

quite well, for he had lived some years in South 
Africa. He was very polite, and asked us if we 
would not like to see the school. I am inclined to 
think he realized that, until he got us inside, there 
was little chance of getting the children in. 

He took us from one room to another — there 
were twelve altogether — explaining the course of 
study and introducing us to the teachers. All of these 
were men, except one; and they sat at their desks 
with their hats on and smoking cigars while the 
children went through their recitations! The one 
woman teacher had charge of the first grade, com- 
posed mostly of children just able to walk The 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 321 

hours are from nine to twelve and from two to four, 
and school lasts pretty much all the year round. 
There is a vacation of four weeks in the summer, 
and two others, at Christmas and Easter, of a 
week each. Attendance is compulsory to the age 
of twelve. 

All this and much more the head-master told us, 
and evidently appreciated our interest in the school. 
Indeed, few things could be quainter than one of 
those rooms, with the teacher^enveloped in a cloud 
of tobacco-smoke, and the bright-faced, queerly- 
costumed children sitting two and two on little bat- 
tered forms with their wooden shoes ranged in a row 
on the floor beside them. The recitations were mostly 
in chorus, and wall-maps and charts seemed to be 
used almost entirely. I do not remember that the 
children had any books whatever, but in this I may 
be mistaken. 

One of the teachers remains especially in my 
memory — a slight, youngish-looking man, with a sad 
face, who gazed at us so wistfully that I stopped for 
a word with him, and found he understood English. 
He told me he had lived eight years in Chicago, but 
had been forced to return to Holland, and now was 
working to earn enough money to get back to America ; 
but it was a long, hard task. Urk, after eight years 
of Chicago — what a contrast ! 

" There is one very great favour you can do me," 

said Mr. I , as we paused at the door to say 

good-bye. " If you would call upon my wife, she 



322 The Spell of Holland 

would be most pleased. She is English, and she gets 
very lonesome here." 

"Of course we will call," said Betty, instantly. 
" We shall be delighted to." 

" That is kind of you," said Mr. I , and so we 

left him, after thanking him for his kindness. 

Just beyond the school, at the extreme southern 
edge of the island, stands the tall, white lighthouse, 
and we decided to visit it, before hunting up Mrs. 

I . We were welcomed at the door by Jan 

Loosman, Jr., the " lichtwachter " — " light-watcher," 
what a good word that is! He had evidently seen us 
coming, and his face was wreathed in smiles. He 
conducted us to the top, and showed us the great 
lantern with much pride. Then he took us out on 
a little platform to the " mist-clock," or fog-bell, which 
is also, of course, automatic, and his face shone almost 
as brightly as his lantern as he tried to explain its 
workings to us. 

His wife met us at the door as we came down, and 
asked us into the house, a quaint little structure of 
two rooms, huddled against the tall shaft of the light- 
house. She was a pleasant- faced woman, dressed in 
the characteristic costume, and she asked us to sit 
down in the painfully clean little living-room, and she 
and her husband looked at us with eyes bright with in- 
terest. They, however, could speak no English, so that 
about all we could do was to smile and nod at each 
other in a way which would no doubt have been amus- 
ing to an onlooker. 




JAN LOOSMAN, LICHTWACHTER, AND HIS FAMILY, URK. 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 323 

The pride of that household was the baby, dressed 
just like its mother, and for the moment confined in 
a wooden tender — just such a tender as you see in 
the pictures of Frans Hals and Jan Steen. I asked 
— by signs — if I might not take its picture. 

" Ja, ja," agreed Mrs. Loosman, instantly, and, 
finally, we got the tender set up in the light-house 
door and the baby, whom all this excitement had 
frightened, quieted down. Another little girl, also 
dressed just like her mother, turned up from some- 
where — I have suspected since that she ran away 
from school on purpose ! — and I took the whole fam- 
ily. I promised to send them one of the pictures — 
Jan wrote his name in my book so that I would be 
sure to get it right — and then I closed the baby's 
little fist about a dubbeltje, and with many bows and 
smiles and good wishes all around, we took our de- 
parture. I hope they liked the picture. 

Our visit to the light-house over, we proceeded 

to hunt up Mrs. I , and found the house without 

much difficulty, up a little street with a lot of wash- 
ings hung out to dry across it ; for there are no back- 
yards in Urk — also no horses, which makes this use 
of the streets possible. A cross-eyed girl answered 
our knock, took one look at us and fled to tell her 
mistress the great news. Mrs. I came in a mo- 
ment, and when we introduced ourselves, her face 
brightened and she asked us in. It was evident enough 
that she was glad to see us, and in true English fashion, 
she at once got out some little cakes and proceeded 



324 The Spell of Holland 

to make tea. I had been having some trouble with 
my camera, and I asked her if she had a dark closet 
into which I could step for a moment to see what was 
the matter. 

" Certainly," she said. " I think the bed will do." 

" The bed? " I echoed, in some surprise 

" Yes," she said. " Here it is," and she opened a 
little door in the wall. 

It was a cupboard-bed, such as we had seen at 
Marken, built into the wall about three feet above the 
floor, and almost air-tight when the door was closed. 

" Do people really sleep in places like that? " asked 
Betty, peering into the gloomy recess 

" Oh, yes," Mrs. I assured us. " All the island- 
ers do. But of course we don't. I should suffocate. 
Will it answer?" 

" Admirably," I said, and clambered in, and pulled 
the door shut after me. In the fifteen years I have 
owned a camera, I have been in some queer dark- 
rooms, but this was the queerest of all! 

It was difficult to understand how anyone could 
survive a night in such a hole. Not a ray of light 
entered, not a breath of air. Yet such beds are very 
common in the Netherlands. They are, indeed, ex- 
cept in the larger cities, the usual kind. In the smaller 
houses, all the beds open out of a common room, and 
one cannot but wonder how the undressing is man- 
aged! 

Our new friend's eagerness to talk, to speak Eng- 
lish again, to tell us about herself, and hear some- 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 325 

thing of the outside world and especially of America, 
was almost pitiful. Her life had not been all beer 
and skittles; there had been tragedy and suffering 
in it; she had married her present husband in South 
Africa, where they had lost everything during the 
war; and here she was, cast up on this pin-point of 
earth, shut off for months in winter from any com- 
munication with the outside world, seeing nobody even 
at other times. To one born and bred in Urk, the 
life there doubtless seems naturaKeiiough ; but for an 
Englishwoman to be marooned there! However, she 
told us the future was looking brighter, and that she 
and her husband hoped soon to be able to get away 
into the world again. 

As we sat there talking, we heard a bell ringing 
violently just outside, and then a stentorian voice 
shouted something. 

"What is that?" I inquired. 

" That is the aanroeper," said Mrs. I . " We 

haven't any newspaper at Urk, so an old blind man 
is employed to go about and tell the news. He's a 
sort of walking advertisement — yesterday he an- 
nounced the arrival of a shipment of new potatoes." 

"And what is he announcing to-day? ' : I asked. 

The voice came again, and Mrs. I listened and 

smiled. 

" He's announcing your arrival," she said. " He 
says that two strangers are at Urk, and that any 
children who annoy them will be shut up by the bur- 
gomeester in the dark-room at the raadhuis." 



326 The Spell of Holland 

" That's very thoughtful of the burgomeester," 
I said, in some embarrassment at becoming thus 
suddenly a public character. " Does he always do 
that?" 

" Oh, yes ; the children here so rarely see strangers 
that they are apt to be annoying, and sometimes vis- 
itors resent it, and then there is trouble." 

Dutch children almost everywhere have a habit of 
following visitors around and staring at them, and 
running ahead to tell their friends ; so that one's prog- 
ress, especially through the smaller villages, is a kind 
of triumphal procession, with the populace looking on 
from either side, and a mob of children clattering 
behind. It had been embarrassing, at first, but we 
had long since got used to it. Certainly we never 
thought of resenting it, for it was plainly only harm- 
less curiosity; but I can understand how it would 
enrage some people. 

Again the voice sounded, and I looked instinctively 
at my camera. 

" I wonder if I could get a picture of the aan- 
roeper? " I said. 

" Oh, yes," and Mrs. I sprang to her feet. 

" He has his regular stopping-places. One is right 
back of the house." 

We hurried out, stumbling over the cross-eyed maid, 
who had stationed herself in the hall so as to have 
a good look at the strange visitors; and down the 
little street came the blind man, a bell in one hand, and 
a boy leading him by the other, his face seamed and 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 327 

roughened by exposure to the weather, his clothing 
worn and patched. I snapped him as he passed, and 
slipped a few pennies into his hand — more money, 
I dare say, than he had seen for many a day. 

For life at Urk is almost incredibly hard. First, 
there is the never-ending battle with the water; for, 
though the whole island is surrounded by a dyke, the 
sea not infrequently breaks through. Then there is 
the even more desperate battle to keep body and soul 
together. Nothing is raised on the island, there are 
no gardens, no manufactories — no income from any 
source but the sea, where anchovies and plaice and 
other fish are caught. Even at the best of times, 
this income is a small and precarious one, and when 
the season is bad, the fishermen are for months on 
the verge of starvation. Nowhere else in the whole 
country did we see such evidences of biting, irreme- 
diable poverty. When the fishing is good, their food 
is fish and potatoes, with a little fat meat once a 
week, and buttermilk or " karnemelk " as an occasional 
delicacy. What they eat when the fishing is bad 
heaven only knows. 

The fishing, our hostess told us, is growing steadily 
worse, so that the future of the Urk islanders is not 
a bright one. They have some sort of grim pride in 
keeping up the fight, I suppose, else they would have 
given it up long ago, and moved to the mainland, 
where life is easier. Even dog-fish are very scarce. 
M. Havard tells of the water about Urk being cov- 
ered by their black and shiny heads, and describes the 



328 The Spell of Holland 

desperate battles which the fishermen sometimes had 
with them in order to protect their nets. But we saw 
not a single one; and when one is captured on the 
beach nowadays, it is a great event. 

Let me add here that the aanroeper is by no means 
peculiar to Urk. Nearly every Dutch village has its 
aanroeper, who is really a sort of public crier, to 
announce the arrival of new goods, the ownership of 
lost articles, and so on; but few villages are so de- 
pendent upon him as is Urk. 

We bade Mrs. I good-bye at last, but before we 

went, she brought out her birthday-book for us to 
write our names in; and she was greatly impressed 
when she learned that Betty was born on the first of 
December, which is also the birthday of Queen Alex- 
andra, of England, and that I had been born on the 
ninth of November, which was the birthday of the 
late King Edward. We had never thought of the 

coincidence; but to Mrs. I it seemed most 

important, almost as if it made us related to roy- 
alty. 

Once away from Mrs. I -'s house, we started out 

to explore the island. The place has not changed 
greatly since M. Havard's day; the town is still a 
huddle of little houses, " scattered pell-mell," without 
regularity of any kind. But even here, in this tiny 
community, there are two well-defined strata of 
society — an " east end " and " west end," so to speak; 
for the better part of the town is built of brick, with 
clean paved streets, while just back of it are the poorer 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 329 

houses, of wood, fronting on filthy little lanes, with 
an open sewer down the middle and no suggestion 
of the traditional Dutch cleanliness. Neither are the 
people here clean-looking — as, indeed, how could 
they be, since cleanliness is a luxury — - and they eyed 
us, as we passed, with evident hostility. 

School was out by this time, and, in spite of the 
burgomeester's warning, three or four of the bolder 
boys caught on to us to show us around, and ask 
endless questions which we coulct^iot understand, and 
pick up a word or two of English. The other chil- 
dren, more timid, contented themselves with peeping 
at us from half-open doors, or around the corners of 
houses, shrinking back out of sight as we approached. 
I could not but think the burgomeester's precaution 
excessive, for the boys who went with us were in 
refreshing contrast to those of Marken. They neither 
asked nor expected any money as a reward for their 
ciceronage; but they did ask me for the cigar I was 
smoking, as soon as I was through with it. I gave 
it to them at once, and they passed it from hand to 
hand, each taking a few hasty puffs, evidently fearing 
that I might want it back again! 

At one end of the village is the old brick church, 
and beside it a little graveyard which, in one respect, 
is unique. It is very small, for there is little land to 
spare on this island. It has long since been full, 
so that now, whenever there is a burial, one of the 
old skeletons is dug up and stored away in a little 
brick charnel-house, to make room for the newcomer ! 



330 The Spell of Holland 

Practically everybody in the village is related in some 
degree to everybody else, so that the whole popula- 
tion turns out to every funeral. 

It is considered a disgrace for an Urk man to go 
outside of Urk for a wife. Indeed, this feeling is gen- 
eral all over the Netherlands. It is an unwritten law 
that a man must get his wife from his own neighbour- 
hood. In the larger places this is, perhaps, all right; 
but in a village like Urk, the consequences of such in- 
breeding are disastrous. During our stay there, we 
saw not less than half a dozen " innocents," wander- 
ing around the streets, and if you will look at the 
wharf picture opposite page 334, you will see two — 
one with his back turned in the middle distance, and 
another leaning against the farther side of the gang- 
plank. How many of the children are idiots I don't 
know, but a good many of them look as though they 
might be. Nor is that all. Hunchbacks are even 
more numerous than idiots, and are expected to do 
their full share of work. We came across one 
laboriously warping a heavy fishing-boat in through 
the narrow channel, and I shall never forget how the 
rope he threw over his shoulder fitted around his 
hump, as he leaned forward towing. 

When we remember that this intermarrying has 
been going on in this little island for four hundred 
years and more, the consequences are not surprising. 
For Urk existed long before the Zuyder Zee did as 
an island in Lake Flevo. Since the formation of the 
sea, it has had a constant struggle for existence with 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 331 

the stormy waters about it. The inhabitants of other 
islands have given up the fight and abandoned them, 
and the islands have disappeared beneath the waves. 
But Urk is still there. 

Only one thing has changed since M. Havard's 
visit — and perhaps this is not really changed! He 
speaks with enthusiasm of the beauty of the women 
— of their tall and graceful forms, of their fair skins 
and blue eyes, and red lips and rounded figures. Alas, 
I must believe that that gallant Frenchman was 
too chivalrous to tell the truth. The girls are some- 
times fresh-looking and attractive; but hard work 
and exposure soon wither them and break them 
down. 

Back of the huddled houses, which occupy the high- 
est part of the island, is a little meadow upon which 
a few cows graze; and near the houses goats are 
tethered, eating such tufts of grass as they can find, 
and kept, I suppose, for their milk. The town, too, 
has its " great man " — the factor, or jobber, who 
buys the products of the sea from the fishermen and 
then markets them on the mainland. In exchange, 
he supplies the fishers with the tools of their trade, 
enough clothing to cover them, and enough food to 
keep body and soul together; and in hard years he 
is compelled to make advances for the coming season. 
His is the warehouse at the wharf; and his, pretty 
much, I fancy, is everything else on the island worth 
owning. We met him on the street — an old, gnarled, 
weather-beaten Dutchman, shrewd- faced and bright- 



332 The Spell of Holland 

eyed — and we were afterwards told with bated 
breath of his enormous wealth — enormous, of 
course, only by comparison with the poverty around 
him. 

But it was well past noon, and we were hungry; 
so we sought the only restaurant in the place, and 
ordered lunch. It was of the simplest kind, but not 
badly-cooked; and after we had finished, the host 
came to talk with us. When I say " talk," I mean 
that by means of his little English and my little Dutch, 
we managed to exchange a few ideas. He had a 
large chromo of the Statue of Liberty on the wall, 
the advertisement of some steamship company, and he 
knew all about it, even to how many people can 
get into the torch. He was much interested to learn 
that we, long ago, in our more youthful and foolish 
days, had clambered to the top of that statue. He 
evidently considered the feat a heroic one. He told 
us that he also furnished lodgings for such strangers 
as stayed over night in Urk, and he evidently hoped 
for our custom. But if there had ever been any ques- 
tion of our leaving on the afternoon boat, there wasn't 
after we saw the beds. They were cupboard-beds, 
so small that to sleep in them at all, one would have 
to lie rolled up in a ball. How those big Dutchmen 
sleep in them I can't imagine. 

We sat down for a while under a little tree in front 
of the inn, and watched the people going back and 
forth, and witnessed a violent quarrel between a 
woman and one of the village "innocents." The 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 333 

children were going back to school for the second 
session, and they all stopped for a final look at us. 
It was amusing to watch the girls, even the very 
small ones, improving each fleeting moment by knit- 
ting stockings as they walked along. They were very 
expert, and knitted rapidly away without once look- 
ing at their work, the ball of yarn in the pocket of 
their apron and the completed portion of the stock- 
ing hanging down over one arm. / Wooden shoes, I 
fancy, are hard on stockings; and the wear on them 
is greatly increased by the fact that indoors everyone 
goes stocking- footed — Jan Loosman had even slipped 
off his shoes before he entered his lighthouse. So 
every Dutch girl spends her spare time replenishing 
the supply. 

As the children came along, the island's single 
policeman hovered in the offing, to see, I suppose, 
that we were not annoyed. That must have been a 
busy day for him. Ordinarily, there is nothing for 
him to do but go down to the landing to see the 
boat come in. The Urk people rather laugh at him; 
certainly he would be ineffective enough against one 
of the brawny fishermen or even his scarcely-less- 
brawny wife. 

We went on again, after a while, for a last look 
round the island. Near the dock, we came upon a 
little girl helping unload peat from a barge, — work 
far too heavy for such a child. I asked her why 
she was not at school, and she answered proudly that 
she was thirteen and didn't have to go to school any 



334 The Spell of Holland 

more. When we asked her her name, she pointed 
to her bodice, upon which her initials were embroid- 
ered, pronouncing the words they stood for. Already 
her arms were burned deep red with exposure, and 
in a few years, such youth as she had would be worn 
out of her. Yet that was her idea of life — the idea 
of all these people! 

The practice of embroidering the initials on the 
over-bodice is quite a common one. You will notice 
that the bodice of the pretty girl in the picture oppo- 
site page 318, is so ornamented. 

The children, even the very small ones, play about 
the wharves and boats in a way to give an American 
mother heart-disease. This is true of the whole 
country; but I have never seen a child in the water, 
except naked in swimming; nor have I ever heard 
of any getting drowned. Perhaps they are born web- 
footed ! From the way every doorstep overflows with 
children I should say that the stork must be kept ex- 
ceedingly busy all the year round. 

A crowd was drifting down again to the pier, and 
a bell rang somewhere to indicate that the boat from 
Enkhuisen was in sight. It steamed in around the 
dyke presently. It was loaded heavily with freight 
from Enkhuisen, and had aboard a number of field- 
hands going over to Kampen to help harvest the hay. 
The freight was mostly potatoes, and many sacks had 
to be put off at Urk. 

While we waited, a crowd of girls hung around 
in front of us, evidently anxious for me to take their 



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ON THE WHARF AT UEK. 




THE OLD FISHERMAN. 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 335 

picture, which I finally did as they were playing around 
a decrepit wheelbarrow. On the harbour side was 
a most picturesque old fisherman seated in the stern- 
sheets of his boat, baiting a multitude of hooks with 
little red worms, and then carefully inserting them 
in a tray of moist sand in front of him to keep them 
fresh. I got his picture, too, and he heard the shutter 
snap and laughed; you will find it opposite page 334. 
The great fin-shaped boards drawn up at the side of 
the boat are lee-boards, which ^are lowered into the 
water when the boat is tacking and take the place of 
a keel. The boats are all keelless, and are built flat 
and wide so as to draw only a few inches of water. 
The Zuyder Zee is so shallow that a keel boat can 
sail only in certain channels. Lee-boards are used on 
all Dutch sail-boats ; without them, indeed, they would 
be unable to navigate the narrow canals except straight 
before the wind. 

The bell rang at last, the gang-plank was pulled 
in, and we backed away. As we did so, a group of 
ugly old women who had watched our proceedings 
with evident disfavour, bade us adieu by shaking their 
fists at us; so perhaps the burgomeester knew what 
he was about, after all! 

The sea was beautifully calm, and as we steamed 

away across it, I thought of a story which Mrs. I 

had told us. The minister at Urk had resigned, not 
long before, and one Sunday morning, a young min- 
ister was sent over from Enkhuisen to preach a trial 
sermon. The Zuyder Zee was in a stormy mood that 



336 The Spell of Holland 

day — so stormy that the unfortunate candidate soon 
became violently ill, and when he landed at Urk was 
almost in a state of collapse. 

However, he was hurried straight into the pulpit, 
while the congregation sat around and grinned. Need- 
less to say, the sermon was a total failure; but if 
it had been worthy of Erasmus it would have made 
no difference. A man who got seasick — bah ! Such 
is Urk. And I cannot but think that that young man 
had a most fortunate escape. To live in Urk is to 
be buried alive. 

The sun was slipping behind the horizon as we 
steamed again up the wide and rapid river, and twi^ 
light was at hand as we tied up at the quay. We 
bade the captain good-bye, and strolled leisurely back 
to the hotel, through the narrow streets, with their 
bright- windowed little shops, and bright- faced pro- 
prietors at the doors. As we neared the hotel, we saw 
M. Breijinck on the steps awaiting us. He welcomed 
us warmly. 

" So you have returned ! " he said. " I am very 
glad!" 

" And we are very hungry," said Betty. 

" I have for you a little dinner which I think you 
will like," and M. Breijinck showed his white teeth. 
" Shall we say twenty minutes? " 

We were down within that time, and I have 
seldom tasted a better meal. Our host had evidently 
killed the fatted calf; and he did us the honour of 
serving it himself. 



The Hermits of the Zuyder Zee 337 

" You have enjoyed the day? " he asked, as he held 
the match for my cigar, at the close. 

" Immensely,'' I said. " But it is not a trip to be 
made the second time. ,, 

" Assuredly no," he agreed. ft Yet one can always 
learn something, even in a place like Urk." 

" I did," said Betty. " I learned the derivation of 
' irksome.' " 

M. Breijinck smiled politely; but his English did 
not go that far. 



CHAPTER XXIV 



AMONG DUTCH INNS 



And here, before we turn our backs upon that 
delightful old inn at Kampen, is the place for me 
to say something about Dutch inns in general. 

We were comparing notes one day with a fellow- 
traveller we happened to meet by the way, and we 
asked him laughingly what he thought of the Dutch 
breakfast. 

" Why," he said, " it's much like other breakfasts, 
isn't it — ham and eggs, or whatever you order ? ,: 

We asked him where he was staying, and he named 
one of the caravanserais " frequented by English and 
American tourists." 

" My dear fellow," I said, " that isn't a Dutch 
breakfast — that's an American breakfast. You 
could have got that at home. There was no use 
coming to Holland for ham and eggs." 

" That's true," he agreed. " Tell me about the 
Dutch breakfast." 

And I did. 

It is a thing unique, is the Dutch breakfast, not to 
be encountered outside of Holland; and, even in 

338 



Among Dutch Inns 339 

Holland, to be found only in those old, clean, bright, 
homelike little inns which tourist traffic has not 
spoiled. There is one to be found in every town, if 
you will only look for it. 

It was at the Hotel Central at Delft that we were 
introduced to the Dutch breakfast, and, after that, 
at Haarlem, Amsterdam, Enkhuisen, Zwolle, Kampen, 
Middleburg, and many other places, we noted with 
delight its variations and developments. The Dutch 
word for breakfast, as I have already said, is " ont- 
bijt," and it is served on a long table in a room 
especially set apart for the purpose. The way the 
table is set is a revelation of the Dutch love of order, 
for the breakfast dishes are repeated over and over 
again along its length in a careful geometrical pattern. 
Now, all ye who have heard so much about the " con- 
tinental " breakfast of coffee and rolls — true enough 
for other parts of Europe — listen to this inventory 
of a Dutch breakfast : 

First there is the bread, of which the Dutch make 
a specialty; and we got so that we felt slighted if 
there were less than seven kinds on the table. There 
are " broodjes " or buns, plain buns and buns with 
currants in them, plain white bread, gingerbread, 
toasted biscuits or rusks, which we grew to love, 
sweet cakes or " honeybread," brown bread, and, 
finally, black bread very wet and heavy, almost like 
fruit-cake. I have seen Dutchmen cut themselves a 
thin slice of this black bread and put the slice in a 
bun and eat it like a sandwich. We never tried to 



340 The Spell of Holland 

eat it but once ; I imagine the taste for it is an acquired 
one. 

There is always plenty of good butter, and this is the 
only meal at which you will see butter on the table, 
unless you ask for it. 

After the bread comes the meat, of which there 
are always three or four kinds, cold boiled ham, cold 
sliced veal or veal-loaf, dried beef, and bologna. Then 
comes the cheese, of which there are three kinds, and 
sometimes more — Edam, a kind of dark hard cheese, 
and another kind with caraway seeds in it. The 
Edam was the only one we liked, but that was very 
good indeed, and I was ashamed sometimes of the 
amount of it I ate. 

Then, at intervals along the table, dishes heaped 
with boiled eggs would be placed, of which you were 
privileged to eat as many as you wanted. If you 
got there early, the eggs were hot; if you got there 
late, they were cold. They were placed on the table 
at the beginning of the meal, and that ended it. 

Then there was always jam of some kind, sometimes 
two kinds, sometimes honey ; and also fruit in sea- 
son. It was the strawberry season when we were 
there, and I never knew before how good strawberries 
are for breakfast. And, finally, there was the coffee, 
usually served in an individual pot, and not a small 
one by any means. 

Which is as well, for nowhere else in Europe will 
you taste such coffee as in Holland. It comes straight 
from those Dutch colonies, Java and Sumatra, and is 



Among Dutch Inns 341 



made by people who know how. Whenever I tasted 
coffee elsewhere in Europe, I got an impression that 
Europeans didn't understand coffee. English coffee 
is abominable; German coffee is little better; even 
the much-vaunted French coffee is not always a suc- 
cess; but Dutch coffee is always exquisite. For the 
Dutch appreciate coffee. When they enter a cafe in 
the evening it is coffee they call for as frequently 
as wine or liqueur ; and it is served in a little cup with 
a little glass of water to washdt down. Coffee and 
cigars go naturally together, and the fact that, in 
Holland, these things are both so good and so cheap 
may explain Dutch appreciation of them. 

The etiquette of the breakfast-room is most rigid. 
On entering, one must bow to the guests already 
assembled, who gravely return the salute. If there 
is a lady at the table, she must receive a separate 
salutation. If it is a lady entering, the men at the 
table will sometimes rise and bow. Conversation is 
general and unconstrained. Social barriers are swept 
away. Everyone makes it his business to see that 
everyone else has a chance to sample all of the fifty- 
seven varieties of food on the table. Particularly if 
you are a stranger, are you the object of solicitude. Is 
your cup empty? The servant is hastily signalled to 
fill it. Does your eye rest on the cold ham? It 
is instantly handed you. 

Upon leaving the table, the etiquette is the same. 
Every eye follows you to the door, and there you 
must turn and bow. The bow is gravely returned, 



342 The Spell of Holland 

and you pass out feeling that all's right with the 
world. At first, these elaborate salutations embar- 
rassed us a little; it required some self-control to 
stop and bow as we passed out; but we soon got 
used to them, and found them a perpetual delight. 

Lunch is served in the cafe, and is usually a la carte, 
though frequently, as in France, there is what is 
called a " plat du jour " or " dish of the day," in 
other words, the day's specialty, which is ready to 
serve and the price of which is considerably less than 
if it had to be especially prepared. The Dutch towns 
are also full of little milk-shops, where a light lunch 
may be had very cheaply, and all such places are 
quite clean and may be entered without hesitation. 

But the great event in every inn and restaurant 
in Holland, an event which is regarded with a venera- 
tion almost religious, is the serving of dinner. The 
Dutch are fond of eating, — as the thousands of pic- 
tures showing them at table prove — and the meal 
for which they save themselves is the evening one. 
The others are mere interludes, mere makeshifts to 
keep hunger from growing too insistent. The dinner 
is the culmination toward which the whole day 
mounts; it is the occasion of thought and solici- 
tude; to make it go off well is to achieve a triumph. 
And yet, strangely enough, it varies so little from day 
to day and from town to town that, given the price, 
one knows almost exactly what the bill of fare will 
be. The result is that, after a time, one's stomach 
revolts, and one is driven to desperate expedients to 



Among Dutch Inns 343 

get something " different," yet the Dutch go on eating 
these dinners day after day, seemingly with no dimi- 
nution of appetite; so I suppose they have been de- 
vised to suit the demand. 

To judge from these dinners, I should say that the 
Dutch expect quantity rather than quality. Not that 
the quality is bad — it is merely commonplace ; and 
the quantity is enormous. 

The price varies from a florin and a quarter, or 
fifty cents, to three florins, or a ^dollar twenty cents, 
depending upon the town and the inn. Two florins 
is about the average price, though almost every res- 
taurant serves different priced dinners, which are 
identical except that the higher priced one includes 
two courses more than the other. And as the aver- 
age American will find himself satiated long before 
the dessert arrives, the cheaper dinner is always more 
than sufficient. 

The two florin dinner will start with hors d'oeuvres, 
usually served in a dish with several compartments, 
in which sliced cucumbers and sardines and olives 
and perhaps radishes are grouped. Next comes the 
soup, usually very good, though we never liked the 
forced-meat-balls floating around in it. Then the fish, 
usually turbot with white gravy and potatoes " au 
naturel," or peeled and boiled in plain water. We got 
so tired of this fish and this gravy and these potatoes, 
that the mere sight of them grew insupportable. 

After the fish will come roast beef and peas; then 
roast or boiled veal and potatoes " au naturel," as 



344 The Spell of Holland 

above. These tasteless potatoes were sure to appear 
at least twice during every meal. Then would come 
roast chicken or duckling, with a compote of apricots 
or prunes ; then a lettuce salad, and finally dessert, con- 
sisting of fruit and cakes and cheese, and sometimes a 
pudding. The price of the meal includes no drink- 
ables of any kind, and wine, or charged water, or coffee 
are all extra. 

If the price of this dinner is two florins, another 
dinner will be served for a florin and a half precisely 
like it, except that the hors d'oeuvres and one of the 
meat courses will be omitted. Even at that, it will 
be more than most people will care to eat. 

I have heard that meat is dear in Europe, but it 
is certainly supplied most lavishly at these dinners. 
Why, after eating roast beef, anyone should wish 
to eat roast veal, and after that roast chicken, is a 
mystery to me. Our idea of a dinner was a soup, 
a meat, a vegetable or two, a salad, a sweet, and coffee. 
We laboured unceasingly toward this ideal, but I must 
confess, not very successfully. And a simple meal 
like that costs a good deal more, served to order, than 
the most elaborate table d'hote meal, besides taking 
about an hour to prepare. So we fell into the habit 
of ordering the table d'hote, and passing the courses 
which didn't appeal to us. In each new town, in each 
new inn, we thought hopefully, " Now, perhaps, there 
will be something different ! " But there never was. 

And yet certain meals stand out in one's memory 
— the first dinner at the Weimar, and the first at the 



Among Dutch Inns 345 

Cafe Brinkmann, our introduction to Dutch pancakes 
at the Hotel Central, a delicious lunch at Arnhem 
— the list grows longer as I look back at those days. 
What we missed most, I think, were certain intimacies 
of home cooking, certain ways of doing certain things 
to which we had grown accustomed. 

For instance, we like our eggs fried on both sides, 
and our progress through Europe was marked by a 
series of struggles to get our eggs turned over. For, 
apparently, the only way European chefs ever heard 
of frying an egg is to fry one side very brown and 
leave the other a shaking mass of albumen. Now 
the instructions necessary to persuade the chef to 
turn the egg in the skillet for just a moment, before 
taking it out, are so idiomatic that I never gained 
command of them in any language but my own; and 
the difficulty was increased by the evident horror 
and astonishment with which the instructions were 
received. The waiter always jumped to the conclu- 
sion that what we wanted was an omelet, and when 
we had convinced him that we did not want an omelet, 
but wanted our eggs fried on both sides, he would 
go slowly toward the kitchen, turning the matter 
over in his mind and glancing back at us to make 
sure that we were not insane. Sometimes the chef, 
incredulous of the message the waiter gave him, would 
come himself to verify it, and then return to the 
kitchen with tragic countenance, plainly debating 
within himself as to whether his artistic conscience 
would permit him to commit this sacrilege. 



346 The Spell of Holland 

However much the inns of Holland resemble each 
other in their meals, they differ greatly in another 
respect — in the size of the vessel in which hot water 
is brought you in the morning. The first Dutch words 
you will have to learn are " heet water," pronounced 
" hate vaatare," for very few chambermaids in Holland 
know any English, and " hot water " is incompre- 
hensible to them. In the smaller inns they are fre- 
quently so frightened by the appearance of a 
foreigner that they don't understand their own lan- 
guage, but run and call the head- waiter as soon as 
you ring your bell. At Kampen, the head-waiter 
himself knew no English, but answered our ring, as the 
chambermaid, of whom I caught not a glimpse, evi- 
dently feared these strange demons from across the 
sea too much even to look at them. Well, we would 
ring the bell, the head-waiter would appear, we would 
tell him what we wanted, he would nod as though 
he thoroughly understood, and then run away with 
his knees knocking together to summon the proprietor ; 
and then the proprietor would himself come and take 
our order. 

I remember now that the chambermaid did appear 
one morning — I suppose the head- waiter had not yet 
arrived — blanched visibly when I opened the door, 
and turned to flee at the first word. But I grabbed 
her wrist and dragged her into the room, and led 
her to the water-pitcher and pointed to it, and put my 
hand against it and then jerked it away as though it 
had been burnt, and kept repeating " Heet water," over 



Among Dutch Inns 347 

and over to her; and finally a little colour came back 
into her face, and she laughed and nodded and ran 
away to get the hot water; and I have no doubt 
related her wonderful adventure in great detail to 
the other servants. 

It was at Kampen that the morning supply of hot 
water reached its minimum. I shall never forget that 
first morning when, in answer to our demand for hot 
water, the head-waiter proudly handed in a tray on 
which was an individual coffee-p^of white porcelain, 
holding about a pint. I lifted the lid and looked in, 
thinking that they had perhaps misunderstood what 
we wanted and brought a morning dram of coffee; 
but no, it was hot water. I told the waiter that 
wasn't enough. He nodded, and ran for the pro- 
prietor. So I told the proprietor that two people 
couldn't make a toilet with one small coffee-potful of 
hot water. He agreed with me, and went away, and 
presently the head-waiter came back, and handed in, 
with beaming face, another tray with another little 
coffee-pot of hot water on it, precisely like the first. 
Every morning after that, in came the tray with the 
two little coffee-pots of hot water and they were all so 
pleased over it, so delighted to have found a solution 
to a problem so difficult, that we hadn't the heart 
to disillusion them. It was amusing, however, to 
have two pots of exactly the same size and shape 
brought in to us at breakfast, a little later, only this 
time full of coffee. It was very good coffee, and 
certainly, in respect to it, we had no reason to com- 



348 The Spell of Holland 

plain of the quantity! But I have since thought that 
perhaps Kampen deserves its reputation, after all. 

I have already said, somewhere, that Dutch beds 
are all that could be desired from the standpoint of 
comfort and cleanliness, and Betty was never weary 
of admiring the linen sheets and embroidered pillow- 
cases and woollen blankets, very light and soft. There 
was another thing, too, she was always looking at, 
and that was the beautiful old furniture, in which 
most of these inns are rich. And then, again, there 
were the exquisite silver spoons, so delicate and shell- 
like, which decked the breakfast-table at Kampen; 
and the old dishes at Enkhuisen. . . . 

Tipping in Holland is by no means the evil it is 
in other parts of Europe. Indeed, in the smaller towns, 
one is inclined to suspect that these sturdy Dutchmen 
rather resent a tip. Outside of the big cities — and 
Scheveningen and Marken — there are no beggars. 
Certainly the children never beg, as they do in France 
and Belgium; the waiters in the restaurants do not 
watch you hungry-eyed as you prepare to leave ; there 
is no line of servants waiting to bid you adieu at the 
door of your inn. Always we have had to summon 
the chambermaid in order to fee her, and she usually 
looked genuinely astonished. 

And everywhere you will meet with courtesy and 
attention; everywhere your comfort will be planned 
for, and your every wish fulfilled, if it is at all possible 
to fulfil it Often, the proprietor will ask you in 
the morning if there is any special dish you would like 



Among Dutch Inns 349 

for dinner, and, if it is within the powers of the chef, 
it will be included in the bill of fare. More than that, 
you will leave each inn with the feeling that not only 
have you been well-treated, but that you have been 
charged exactly what everyone else is charged for the 
same service, and that no slightest advantage has been 
taken of the fact that you are a stranger to the country. 
We stayed at perhaps twenty inns in Holland, and ate 
at innumerable restaurants; and I do not remember 
a single disputable item on any bHl, or a single over- 
charge. 

I do not know of any higher tribute I can pay 
Dutch innkeepers than that! 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE HILLS OF HOLLAND 

We left Kampen the morning after our trip to 
Urk, accompanied to the door of the Pays-Bas by 
our host and his sister, who bade us good-bye with 
many wishes for a safe and pleasant journey. We 
had first to return to Zwolle, and from there started 
southward toward Arnhem: that earthly paradise 
— or so the Dutch consider it. 

From Zwolle southwards, the train runs through 
a country of orchards and fine gardens — the first 
orchards of any size we had seen in Holland. Broad 
wheat-fields, too, stretched on either side the road, 
with the grain yellow and ready for the harvest. The 
fields were bright with scarlet poppies, forming a 
delightful colour contrast with the brown stalks of 
the wheat. We were soon in the midst of a rich 
country, dotted with handsome, well-kept farmsteads. 
Ditches and canals grew fewer, and an occasional 
close-cropped hedge attested the fact that we were 
getting into the higher part of Holland. Another 
indication was the appearance of firs — first little 
patches of scrubby ones, and then larger and larger 
ones, until at last every road was shaded by long 

350 



The Hills of Holland 351 

avenues of very lofty ones, and stretches of forest 
made the air fragrant. 

Deventer is a clean and pretty little town, shaded 
by these beautiful trees, but it is scarcely worth a 
visit even from the most leisurely traveller. As the 
train ran on toward Zutphen, the air grew so cool 
that a wrap was necessary. It was evident that there 
had been much rain in the neighbourhood, for the low 
fields were flooded and the banks of rivers and canals 
were marked only by the rows^of pollards sticking 
out of the water. We learned afterwards that the 
Rhine was in flood; and when the Rhine is in flood, 
nearly every other stream in Holland feels the 
effect. 

Zutphen is a pretty, modern town, reached by a 
great iron bridge over the Ijssel. It is worth a visit, 
if only for the purpose of seeing the old chapter- 
house attached to the Groote Kerk, with its chained 
books. Everyone has read, of course, of the old 
libraries where the books were chained to the reading- 
desks in order to ensure them against theft. Well, 
here is one of these libraries still in existence, each 
of the old black-letter volumes with a hasp at the 
back through which the desk-chain is secured. 

The church itself is not remarkable, and only a 
few of the old buildings still look down on the quiet 
streets, which, on that winter day in 1572, when the 
Spaniards marched into the town, literally ran with 
blood. For Alva had ordered that not a man was to 
be left alive, and that every house was to be burned 



352 The Spell of Holland 

— a command which was religiously obeyed. " As 
the work of death became too fatiguing for the 
butchers," says Motley, " five hundred innocent 
burghers were tied two and two, back to back, and 
drowned like dogs in the river Yssel. ,, One wishes 
that Motley had omitted from that sentence the words 
" like dogs," but such faults of taste are not infre- 
quent in his great history. 

Fourteen years after that massacre, a force of 
English and Dutch fell upon a Spanish convoy advan- 
cing to the relief of the city, then besieged, and in the 
skirmish that followed, an English volunteer was 
wounded in the thigh. That volunteer was Sir Philip 
Sidney, and he died at Arnhem, the victim of bun- 
gling surgery, twenty-six days later. 

It is upon this same river Ijssel, in which so many 
of Zutphen's burghers lost their lives, that the town's 
prosperity depends; for the river brings to its gates 
great rafts of timber from German forests, which are 
here divided and distributed over all Holland. 

Beyond Zutphen, the country takes on more and 
more the appearance of a magnificent park, or pleasure- 
ground — which, indeed, it is. For it is at Arnhem 
and in its neighbourhood that many of the Dutchmen 
made rich by residence in the East Indies, or by the 
East Indian trade, have chosen to make their homes. 
Those homes are in the shape of handsome villas, 
much larger and more elaborate than those we saw 
about Haarlem, and are placed usually at the summit 
of a long slope, down which a vista has been cleared 



The Hills of Holland 353 

to give a view into the valley. For there are hills 
here; not very high ones, it is true, and yet very high 
for Holland. It is for this reason the Dutch think this 
neighbourhood so beautiful. 

Arnhem itself is really a sort of health-resort; a 
modern town with little that is characteristically Dutch 
about it; the capital of Guelderland, and a bustling 
place where the traveller in search of the quaint and 
interesting will find little reason to remain. The 
environs are picturesque, and th£ Dutch esteem them 
highly, for hills and forests are unusual luxuries to 
them. But Americans have at home scenery far more 
picturesque, and there is no reason why they should 
go to Holland to linger among this. As I have said, 
Arnhem is the earthly paradise of Dutchmen, and they 
are always advising the traveller to go there. But 
the things of real interest to the stranger in Holland 
are not its health-resorts, with new hotels and smart 
villas, but its little old towns, unchanged for centuries, 
and the simple, honest, and unaffected people who 
live in them, 

Arnhem has, however, an interesting church. It 
looms high over the Groote Markt, with a massive 
tower; and its flying buttresses at once attract the 
eye, they are so rare in Holland. But here in the 
east, stone was cheaper and more plentiful than in 
the west, and so was used with much greater pro- 
fusion. The flying buttresses are very flat, the result 
of an unusually high triforium and low clerestory. 
The carving on the buttresses and around the door- 



354 The Spell of Holland 

ways of the church must once have been very elab- 
orate and beautiful, but it is now almost entirely worn 
away. 

Inside there is another unique feature, for the in- 
terior is not whitewashed, but the soft gray stone 
has been left as nature made it. The pillars, too, are 
clustered, instead of round, while nave and choir are 
both very high, with stone vaulting and simple but 
effective groining. There is an ambulatory around 
the choir, and two of the central pillars have queer, 
rug-like decorations painted on them, as at Haarlem. 
The west end of the nave is, of course, closed in by 
a towering organ; and there is the usual carved 
pulpit and huddled pews. The whole church is under- 
going a careful restoration. 

In the choir, which has a handsome screen, is an 
interesting monument — that of Charles van Egmont, 
Duke of Gueldres, who died in 1538, after a life- 
time spent in opposing the encroachments of Emperor 
Charles V. The tomb shows the duke, in full armour, 
recumbent upon a slab of black marble. On the sides 
of the tomb are a number of beautifully-sculptured 
marble panels, the twelve apostles, together with St. 
Elizabeth, the Holy family, and St. Christopher. I 
do not remember having seen anywhere more exqui- 
site work. 

On the north wall above the tomb, beneath a wooden 
canopy, is a kneeling figure of the duke, in wax, 
wearing a suit of his armour, and very lifelike. I 
wonder that Madame Tussaud has not acquired it. 



The Hills of Holland 355 

The guide to the church announces that the tower 
contains a " fine peel of bells/' dating from 1650. 

A good idea of the environs of Arnhem may be 
had by a walk or drive along the Velp road, glimpses 
of which you have seen from the train windows on 
the way from Zutphen. At Klarenbeck, a beautiful 
avenue of beeches leads to the ruins of an old Car- 
thusian monastery, and from there a path climbs 
upward to the summit of the Klarenberg, where some 
old stone seats from the cloi^t^ below have been 
placed, enabling the visitor to sit down and enjoy at 
leisure the pretty view along the valley of the river. 

Just south of Arnhem, and not many miles away, 
stands the old town of Nijmwegen, founded by the 
Romans and built, like Rome, on an amphitheatre 
of seven hills. Only these hills rise, not from the 
bank of the Tiber, but from the Waal. The town 
is approached from across the river, and the prospect 
of the old red roofs huddled about the great church 
which dominates the town from the crest of the high- 
est hill is very picturesque. In fact, there are few 
more picturesque towns in Holland, and I would 
strongly recommend staying here rather than at 
Arnhem, which is only ten miles away, and which 
may be visited from here very conveniently. 

We are getting down toward Belgium now, and 
Nijmwegen strikes one as resembling the old Belgian 
cities more than it does the Dutch ones. For there 
are no canals, but narrow, crooked streets running 



356 The Spell of Holland 

steeply up and down the hills; and the houses, while 
old and picturesque enough, heaven knows, are not 
built high and narrow, with many-stepped gables, as 
on the soft soil of western Holland. Here in Nijmwe- 
gen, indeed, one can almost fancy oneself in Ghent 
or Bruges. 

There is a tram leads from the station up into the 
old town, and it is as well to take it, for the modern 
residential quarter extends back from the station for 
a long way and is not worth traversing on foot. Just 
opposite the station is a very nice hotel, named after 
the house of Orange, with a most hospitable land- 
lord ; but it is not an inn and has long since outgrown 
the Dutch breakfast. 

The country about Nijmwegen is just as rich in 
romantic scenery as that about Arnhem, and, as the 
afternoon of our arrival was a singularly bright and 
pleasant one, we decided to explore it without delay. 
The chief vantage-point is the Burg en Daal, and to 
this a tram runs from the station, mounting between 
handsome villas and through fragrant woods, and 
discharging its passengers in front of the beautiful 
grounds of the Hotel Burg en Daal — surely a good 
place for any person with tired nerves to spend a week 
or two. A walk through the grounds leads to the 
\ observation platform overlooking the valley, and a 
very pleasing view it is. 

From there a path called the " Berg Weg," or hill 
road, leads down through the woods into the valley. 
We took it very leisurely, for it was a relief to be in 



The Hills of Holland 357 

the woods and in hilly country again, after our long 
sojourn on flat and woodless plains. Half-way down, 
we were stopped by a bright- faced old man, the park 
watch, who had a little lodge there and who wanted 
to talk and, incidentally, sell a few postcards. When 
he learned that we were from America, he took us 
into his lodge and insisted that we sign his visitors' 
book, for we were the first Americans who had come 
that way that season. While we were thus engaged, 
a party of Dutch tourists came-in, and the old man 
explained to them, with great excitement, that we 
had come from across the ocean, and here we were 
in his little cottage, writing our names in his book. 
Was it not wonderful! 

A little farther down the hill, the path led us to 
the village of Beek, evidently a summer-resort, with 
many gay villas in the flamboyant modern Dutch style, 
and beautiful glimpses of the flooded valley below. 
From here, another tram took us back to Nijmwegen, 
and landed us in front of the hotel. 

The town was en fete that night, for a big electrical 
exposition was in progress; but we, who had seen 
our fill of electric signs on Broadway, would have 
preferred the quieter normal life of the town. But 
even the electric signs could not destroy its mediaeval 
flavour, and the less important streets were as dark 
and mysterious and promising of romance as could 
be desired. As we made our way along them, a boy's 
voice suddenly rose behind us, singing shrilly, and 
went on down the street, and melted away in the dis- 



358 The Spell of Holland 

tance; and I thought of Gavroche and of his midnight 
promenade through the streets of Paris on the way 
to the barricade. 

Seen by daylight, old Nijmwegen is a perpetual 
delight. It clusters about a market-place which might 
be transferred bodily to the comic-opera stage, with an 
old weigh-house and fleshers' hall looking down upon 
it, and the tower of the church just round the corner. 
The upper part of the fleshers' hall is used as a police 
headquarters, as we found when we tried to enter. 
Three or four policemen came running out to see what 
the matter was, and it was with some difficulty we 
made them understand that no crime had been com- 
mitted, but that we had merely made a mistake. We 
had lunch at a little cafe overlooking the market-place, 
and watched a gang of men sweeping up the debris 
of the market which had just ended. 

A little farther on is the stadhuis, dating from the 
middle of the sixteenth century; not especially inter- 
esting without, but containing some old oak magis- 
trates' stalls, almost as beautiful as those at Kampen. 
It was here that, in 1678, the peace between France, 
Spain, and the United Netherlands was signed. There 
is also a museum in the building, with some beautiful 
examples of old silversmiths' work, as well as some 
objects of historical interest, of more or less doubt- 
ful authenticity. And there is also one of the wooden 
barrels, or petticoats, in which, in the old days, the 
errant wives of Nijmwegen were condemned to stand 
exposed to the gaze of the jeering multitude. 



The Hills of Holland 359 

From the market-place a narrow street leads to 
the old church of St. Stephen, standing in the midst 
of a picturesque huddle of red-roofed houses, which 
lean against it on all sides and completely shut it in. 
The church is gray, and stained, and weather-beaten, 
with its carvings all but washed away. At the tran- 
sept entrance, is a very handsome pavilion, where the 
carvings, having been more or less protected from 
the weather, are still reminiscent of their former 
beauty. cJ 

The church is a very old one, for it was begun 
in the thirteenth century, and completed by the middle 
of the fourteenth. It was originally stone- vaulted 
throughout, but the vaulting in the nave grew danger- 
ous, and was finally taken down and replaced by barrel- 
vaulting. All the traceries are gone from the windows, 
which are filled in with ordinary window-glass, held 
in narrow frames, and the interior is whitewashed 
from top to bottom, every inch of it. The whitewash- 
ing is even extended outside to the pavilion over the 
transept entrance. There is an ambulatory with radi- 
ating chapels; and in the choir is the monument of 
Catherine of Bourbon. The koster who took us 
around was especially proud of the carved pulpit and 
the carved doors. 

Nijmwegen also has its park or public pleasure- 
ground laid out on an eminence above the valley of the 
Waal, and called the Valkhof — you may, perhaps, 
remember seeing Jan van Goyen's painting of it at 
the Rijks. It is a historic spot, for there among the 



360 The Spell of Holland 

trees stand the ruins of the old castle where Charle- 
magne once lived — a castle which would be stand- 
ing yet in its entirety but for the vandalism of the 
French sansculottes, who destroyed it in 1796. A 
little distance away, is the castle chapel, a tower-like, 
sixteen-sided structure, consecrated by Pope Leo III. 
in 799. That, I think, is the most venerable building 
still standing in Holland. 

From the edge of the Valkhof overlooking the river, 
the huddled roofs of the old town may be seen below, 
most charming and picturesque, and beyond the river 
the flat plains stretching away to the north. It is a 
place to linger in. 



CHAPTER XXVI 



INTO ZEELAND 



Our host at the Oranje had, at one period of his 
life, visited Chicago, a fact which seemed to give 
Americans an especial claim upon his consideration, 
and he accompanied us to the door next morning 
wishing us good fortune and pleasant days. We left 
Nijmwegen regretfully — as we had so many other 
Dutch towns — and left, too, the hilly part of Hol- 
land; for we were soon rolling through a country 
typically Dutch — the old, familiar, and beloved land- 
scape with its canals, and tree-bordered roads, and 
flat fields, and grazing cows. 

At Nijmwegen we had seen our first Brabant head- 
dresses — a white cap with a long tail, with a wreath 
of artificial flowers around the top, and wide white 
ribbons hanging down on either side. Now, as it 
was Sunday, the people along the roads were decked 
out in similar finery, going to church on foot or in their 
high carts. Dutch wagons, I have observed, are built 
pretty much in the shape of a boat, perhaps because 
at first their owners were uncertain whether they would 
have to be used on land or water, and so built them 
suitable for either. 

361 



362 The Spell of Holland 

We left the train at 'S Hertogenbosch — which re- 
markable word is the Dutch of the French Bois-le- 
Duc, or Duke's Wood; a strange name for a town, 
surely, and given to it because it grew up in a wood 
belonging to the Duke of Brabant. It reminds one 
of 'S Gravenhage, The Count's Enclosure, of which 
I have already had occasion to speak. 

It was in 1196 that Duke Henry of Brabant had 
a portion of the wood cleared and built himself a 
castle here in order to curb the robbers and cut-throats 
who were making the forest their rendezvous. A 
town, of course, sprang up around the castle, and so 
began that " city which held the fourth place among 
the four capital towns of Brabant, and which is called 
in Dutch 'S Hertogenbosch, in Latin Silva Ducis, and 
in French Bois-le-Duc." In less than a century it 
was an opulent city, and its growth was only curbed 
by the progress of the struggle against Spain. This 
portion of the country was always strongly Catholic; 
so little Dutch, indeed, that a few days after the 
murder of William the Silent, a Te Deum was sung 
in the cathedral here to celebrate the event. But in 
1629, Frederick Henry of Nassau captured the town 
after a memorable siege, and the province became a 
part of the United Netherlands. But it has always 
remained Catholic. 

It is the cathedral in which that Te Deum was sung 
which to-day compels a visit to the town, for it shares 
with the church of St. Nicholas, at Kampen, the 
honour of being the most important mediaeval church 



Into Zeeland 363 



in Holland. It far surpasses the other in richness 
of decoration — in fact, it is ornamented with an ex- 
traordinary lavishness which reminds one of the cathe- 
dral at Rouen. The French influence is very percep- 
tible, and the fact that stone is used throughout adds 
greatly to its beauty. 

The exterior decoration, indeed, is carried to the 
nth degree. For example, each of the flying but- 
tresses has five riders sitting astride it, and a lion bear- 
ing a shield stands at the point where it joints the but- 
tress. Every finial is surmounted by a statuette, and 
there is a statue in each of the innumerable niches 
across the front and along the sides. 

The richness of the transept entrance may be seen 
from the photograph opposite page 362; and also 
the squat, plain, unlovely tower at the western end, 
evidently an addition of a later and cruder date, which, 
I hope, will some day be replaced by a tower more in 
keeping with the rest of the structure. The stone 
of which the church was built seems very soft, for it 
has crumbled and disintegrated under the action of 
wind and rain until the ancient carvings are mere 
shapeless masses. If you will look at the buttresses 
around the choir chapels, in the photograph, you will 
.see how they have dwindled away. Forward of the 
choir, a careful restoration has been accomplished, and 
is going steadily on. But it is a virtual rebuilding. 

The interior is, of course, well preserved and is 
very beautiful. Here there is no whitewash, but the 
natural gray of the stone; here, too, are statues of 



364 The Spell of Holland 

the apostles against the clustered pillars of the nave, 
a high altar gleaming with candles, chapels with 
altars and pictures, the smell of incense — in a word, 
all the pageantry of the Roman Catholic Church; 
for this building has never passed from Catholic 
control. 

The nave is very lofty, supported by clustered pil- 
lars, flanked by double aisles, with stone vaulting 
throughout. The triforium, pierced and trilobed, is 
high and graceful, and the flowing window traceries 
all that could be desired. The ambulatory is .sur- 
rounded by radiating chapels; and in the north tran- 
sept is the lady-chapel, dating from the middle of the 
thirteenth century. Its great treasure is an image of 
the Virgin, also dating from the thirteenth century, 
which is highly venerated, and is known all over south- 
ern Holland as " de Zoete Moeder van den Bosch," 
or " The Sweet Mother of the Wood." Many mira- 
cles are attributed to it, and during the annual festival 
which takes place at 'S Hertogenbosch during the 
latter part of July, it is carried through the streets in 
solemn procession. 

'S Hertogenbosch, it should be remembered, is the 
capital of the province of North Brabant, and not very 
far away across the Scheldt is Brabant proper. The 
whole impression here is of a people more Flemish than 
Dutch; and the town itself deepens that impression. 
There is little to detain one, once the cathedral has 
been seen. The museum, known officially as " De Mu- 
seum van het Provinciaal Genootschaap van Kunst en 



Into Zeeland 365 



Wetenschappen in Noord-brabant," contains a lot of 
curios, but they are of slight interest except to the 
antiquary. 

West of 'S Hertogenbosch, the train runs across 
vast stretches of waste land, evidently subject to 
inundation; with thickets of scrub-pine growing on 
the higher tracts, and the lower ones covered with 
mud. The ground must be very soft, and this soft- 
ness results in many inequalities in the bed of the rail- 
road, which makes this stretch oi track one of the 
roughest I have ever ridden over. 

Past Tilburg we went, a manufacturing town with 
nothing of interest to the stranger; past Breda, where 
one thinks of Velazquez's deathless painting; past 
Bergen op Zoom, with its great church; and then 
presently we are in Zeeland, that most picturesque of 
provinces, where every journey to Holland should 
either begin or end. 

Zeeland, which, of course, means " Sea-land," is 
well-named, for it is more nearly amphibious than any 
other land on earth. The arms of Zeeland show a 
lion struggling in the ocean, and its motto is " LuCtor 
et Emergo," " I Struggle and I Emerge." But it 
doesn't always emerge; sometimes it sinks when a 
great storm drives the ocean up the bays and over 
the dykes, and then there is weary work shutting the 
sea out again. This battle has been going on for 
many centuries, and will, no doubt, always continue; 
though, of course, the province grows safer with the 



366 The Spell of Holland 



advance of engineering. But it is really nothing but 
a series of low islands, separated by wide estuaries, 
and it can never regard the ocean with indifference 
or contempt. 

Perhaps because it is thus isolated from the rest 
of the world, Zeeland has kept its old costumes and 
its old customs more nearly unchanged than any other 
of the Dutch provinces, and hence it is one of the 
most delightful to visit. More especially so since its 
capital, Middleburg, is the most charming of Dutch 
cities. As I have said, all tours in Holland should 
begin or end there. As for us, we saved it for the 
last. 

Our train, then, is in Zeeland. It rattles over a 
viaduct, crosses wide stretches of marsh land, passes 
some little groves with the trees planted in straight 
rows — for the straight line is the Dutchman's line 
of beauty. Along the roads and in the doorways of 
near-by houses, we see men, women, and children 
wearing the characteristic costume of the province; 
but I shall not try to describe it until I have a photo- 
graph to assist me. 

It was about the middle of the afternoon when we 
reached Middleburg, which, from the station, gives 
no promise of the picturesqueness which reveals itself 
as soon as one plunges into the crooked streets; and 
after we had got comfortably settled at our hotel, 
we sallied forth. For everyone appeared to be out 
enjoying the fine weather, and I was determined to 



Into Zeeland 367 



get some photographs of those quaint costumes before 
the opportunity escaped. 

As we made our way along the street, we came 
suddenly to a doorway which was disgorging a crowd 
of people from a church service of some sort, and 
we soon found that most of them were returning to 
their homes somewhere out in the country, either 
walking or mounting into polished Tilburys and 
jingling away. So we followed along, over the wide 
canal to the station, across an o^^head bridge above 
the tracks, and down on the other side along a coun- 
try-road, past a dear little village. 

Then, as we turned off along a beautiful path across 
the fields, we saw a family party coming toward us 
— a man with his wife and little daughter — all so 
beautifully dressed, that I asked them if I might not 
take their picture, and they laughed and said yes, 
and you will find it opposite the next page. The man 
wrote his address in my note-book, so that I might 
send him a print, and I hope he liked it. I, myself, 
am rather proud of that photograph. 

The faces of that family summarize Dutch char- 
acter — the man strong, self-reliant, and yet good- 
natured; the woman robust and capable; the child 
ruddy-cheeked and charming. And now, with that 
photograph for you to look at, there is little need 
that I should describe the Zeeland costume. But there 
are a few points to which I must call your attention. 
One is that mother and daughter are dressed exactly 
alike, as father and son would have been, had there 



368 The Spell of Holland 

been a son. Another is the skin-tight elbow sleeves 
which the women and girls wear in all weathers. 
The lower part of the arm is wholly unprotected, and 
is burnt by the sun and frozen by the cold until it 
assumes the colour of an over-ripe tomato, and seems 
ready to burst at a touch. I don't know whether 
they are painful, but they certainly look so. 

There is one detail of the costume which shows 
but indistinctly in the photograph, and that is the 
bangles before the eyes. These are pendants of gold 
or silver, something like huge ear-rings, and they 
swing back and forth, one before each eye, in a man- 
ner which one would suppose to be unbearably annoy- 
ing. Why they are worn I cannot imagine, and they 
must be torture until the wearer grows accustomed 
to them, and to the interrupted and partially-obscured 
vision which they enforce. Let me add that the clasp 
at the man's throat and the buttons at his waist were 
of gold; the woman's necklace was of coral with a 
gold clasp, and all the ornaments of both mother and 
daughter were of the same metal. 

We went on, after that, past a group of boys who 
were practising a topical song — the same jumpy 
march we had heard at Leiden; and, presently, we 
had the pleasure of witnessing a Zeeland courtship. 
Every lassie has her laddie hereabouts; but the milk- 
maids either labour under the disadvantage of hav- 
ing no place in-doors where their swains may woo 
them in privacy, or else they wish to display their 
lovers to the world, for, on Sunday afternoons, they 



Into Zeeland 369 



take them along when they go milking. The girl 
goes out to the field with her yoke on her buxom 
shoulders, and her lover follows, without offering to 
help carry the burden. Then, when the cow's tail has 
been tied and the maid is safely tucked away under 
her, sending the milk foaming into the pail, the lover 
squats down on his heels close beside her, and they 
exchange (I suppose) vows of constancy eternal. 

I took a photograph of one such loving pair; but 
a ditch full of water intervened^o that I could not 
get near enough to make it effective. You will find it, 
such as it is, opposite the next page, and if you look 
closely you will see the man a black smudge by the 
girl's side. Please don't think I was intruding when 
I snapped that picture, for it was taken with the full 
permission of both parties. A crowd of boys gathered 
near the place, soon afterwards, and shouted raucous 
and, I doubt not, unseemly advice as to the proper 
methods of courting. 

These methods differ widely in the various Dutch 
provinces; but the object is the same everywhere — 
as all the world over! — to find out if the maid is 
willing. In North Holland, the lover knocks at the 
maiden's door with a huge cake of gingerbread under 
his arm. She admits him, and he places the cake 
on the table. If she likes him, she puts some more 
peat on the fire and cuts the cake, and all is well. 
But if the fire is not replenished, he knows he is not 
wanted, and takes up his cake and goes home, and 
presumably comforts himself by consuming it. 



370 The Spell of Holland 

Over in Friesland, when the lover calls, if the 
maiden goes out and dons her casque and ornaments 
and then comes back again, the happy man knows 
that he has been accepted. Or sometimes he gives 
her a handkerchief with a knot in it; and if she 
unties the knot, it is a sign that he has won her heart 
— or, at least, her hand. It may be that the Dutch 
lover is a peculiarly sensitive being; at any rate, all 
of these ceremonies seem to be devised for the pur- 
pose of sparing him the humiliation of a refusal in 
words, or perhaps they are to spare the Dutch maiden 
the cruel necessity of saying no. I do not know 
what ceremonial is necessary in Zeeland before the 
maiden permits her swain to sit beside her in the gaze 
of all the world while she is milking; but it can be 
no very exacting one, for such couples were frequent 
that Sunday afternoon. 

We rambled on a mile or two into the country, for 
I wanted to get a good photograph of a girl milking; 
but we saw none that afternoon that was approachable. 
For you must remember that all these fields are sur- 
rounded by ditches full of water, and unless you 
approach them on the side where the entrance is you 
are barred out far more effectively than by a fence 
or wall. 

We gave it up after awhile, and turned back to 
the town, passing more than one high Tilbury full of 
beaming, red-faced country-folks, who nodded and 
smiled at us and waved their hands. Then we had 
dinner at the Vieux Doelen, hoping against hope, and 



Into Zeeland 371 



vainly, that dinners here might differ from other 
Dutch dinners; and after that we strolled about those 
dear old streets, and wandered through the court of 
the gray abbey, and looked at the beautiful stadhuis. 
And then we drifted into a picture-shop at the corner 
of the market-place, and soon found that we were 
in the presence of the Messieurs Den Boer, who make 
those delightful Dutch postcards which everyone has 
seen. 

In common with most other people, I fancy, I have 
always thought that the chubby children in quaint 
costume on those postcards were especially dressed 
and posed; but that is not so. One of the brothers 
roams about with his camera and takes pictures as 
he finds them, and the best of them are selected for 
postcard use. We talked with him for quite a while, 
for he could speak English very well, and he grew 
most pathetic over the way his pictures were stolen 
by other people and used without credit to him. That 
complaint recurred to me just the other day when 
I opened a magazine to an article on Holland, " with 
photographs by the author/' and found two of M. 
Den Boer's among them ! We had a pleasant talk with 
him, and ended by wishing that we might one day 
find him at the head of an art- shop on Fifth Avenue. 
He thanked us, and said that it was not at all im- 
possible. 

It was rather late when we got back to the hotel, 
but I had some letters to write, and sat down in the 
office to do it. And presently there entered a tall. 



372 The Spell of Holland 

thin man, the twang of whose voice told me that he 
was a Yankee. It was long past the dinner hour, and 
I listened, amused, while he struggled to get some- 
thing to eat. He was led away to the dining-room, 
finally; and after a time he came back, and sat down 
in a chair near me, and sighed, and took out a cigar 
and lighted it and puffed it moodily, staring dismally 
at nothing. 

I finished my letter, and then turned to him. 

" Well, comrade," I said, " how's good old Massa- 
chusetts? " 

He jumped an inch. 

" What ! " he cried, his face beaming. " Are you 
an American? " 

" From Ohio." 

" You missed it on Massachusetts. My folks came 
from there, but I'm from Cleveland. Can we get 
anything to drink in this joint? It was the devil and 
all to get something to eat." 

" Drinkables are easier," I said, and lifted a finger 
to the attentive waiter. 

And then, when we had got our cigars going, we 
began to talk. 

" It's like money from home, meeting you here," 
he said. " What are you doing in this God- forsaken 
country? " 

" I don't think it's God- forsaken." 

" You would if you were in my line." 

"What line?" 

" Harvesting machinery." 



Into Zeeland 373 



I stared at him for an instant before I understood. 
And then I laughed. I couldn't help it. 

" Do you mean," I gasped, " that you're trying to 
sell harvesting machinery to these Dutchmen ?" 

He nodded glumly. 

" But how can you do business if you don't know 
the language?" I asked. 

" Oh, I take an interpreter along; but I know that, 
half the time, he's giving me the double-cross. I can 
see why it amuses you," he added. " I was never 
up against such a proposition before. Labour's so 
cheap over here that when you tell a man the price 
of a mower he looks as though he were going to drop 
dead. And even if you'd give them away, they 
wouldn't take them. They want to harvest their hay 
just like their fathers and grandfathers and great- 
grandfathers did. Then their fields are so cut up 
by those infernal ditches that you can hardly turn a 
machine around in them; and then when you do sell 
one — " 

"What!" I cried. "You haven't really sold 
one!" 

"I've sold two!" 

" Well," I said, " I admire you. I shouldn't have 
thought it could be done. Go ahead ! " 

" When they do buy one, the first time some little 
thing happens to it, they take it to the nearest cross- 
roads blacksmith and he reconstructs it according to 
ideas of his own, and puts it out of business for good. 
Oh, it's a sweet job ! " 



374 The Spell of Holland 

I condoled with him; and after awhile we said 
good-night, and I never saw him again. But I hope 
he has found an easier job than that! I'm sure, at 
least, that he couldn't have found a harder one! 






CHAPTER XXVII 



LAST DAYS 



If Delft is built like a gridiron and Amsterdam 
like a horse-shoe, Middleburg is built like a wheel, 
or, rather, like wheels within wheels. An abbey, with 
its church, formed the centre of the old town, and 
about this the city has developed concentrically in 
the na'ivest way. The result is that, until one gets 
used to the town, one is always turning up at the abbey, 
and most surprised to find oneself there. It becomes 
a sort of game, at last — to get away from the abbey. 
It would almost seem that the old monks had shrewdly 
hit upon this method of insuring that every resident 
of the town would sooner or later find his way into 
its precincts. 

Which is one reason why it is as well to stay at 
the Hotel de Abdij, as the Dutch spell it, which fronts 
upon the abbey square; one will never have any dif- 
ficulty in getting back to it. It is, besides, a typical 
Dutch inn, and for picturesqueness of situation, in 
the shadow of gray old walls, has few rivals. 

The abbey of St. Nicholas is the most ancient of 
structures, and looks it, for it was begun in 1106 
— try to think back to 1106, and imagine what was 

375 



376 The Spell of Holland 

going on in the world then! Here, in 1505, the 
Knights of the Golden Fleece held what was perhaps 
the most brilliant meeting in the history of that order. 
But, with the expulsion of Spain, the huge pile of 
buildings was converted to secular uses, and now 
the council of the province of Zeeland meets in the 
old hall where the bishops of the church once delib- 
erated. On the walls are some Dutch tapestries, rep- 
resenting sea-fights famous in Dutch history. Beneath 
the council-room are two dim, vaulted chambers, and 
from these one steps out into the handsome old clois- 
ters. It is like stepping back into the Middle Ages ! 

The abbey, of course, had its church. It is now 
the Protestant Nieuwe Kerk, and only the choir, the 
nave, and one aisle remain. The choir is much as 
it formerly was, except that it is whitewashed; but 
it still has its old groined vaulting and window 
traceries, from which, however, the stained glass has 
long since disappeared. The choir has been separated 
from the rest of the church by a plaster partition, 
and is really a little church by itself. The nave, which 
forms another church, is as bare and uninteresting as 
four whitewashed walls can be. 

But the old tower still stands, and a magnificent 
one it is, regarded with respect and affection by all 
good Middleburgers, who call it " De Lange Jan," 
or " Long John." It deserves the adjective, for it is 
nearly three hundred feet high, and has stood there 
chiming out the hours and halves and quarters and 
eighths for almost two centuries. Yes, it really does 



Last Days 377 



chime the eighths, for the carillon rings every seven 
and a half minutes. It has a beautiful peal of forty- 
two bells, and here, at last, I was able to gratify my 
desire to examine the mechanism which works them. 

I shall never forget the sunny afternoon I clam- 
bered up those four hundred stone steps to the summit, 
and, coming out at the top among the bells, found all 
Zeeland at my feet. Away to the south lay Flushing, 
away to the north Veere, marking the limits of the 
island of Walcheren; away to^Jhe east was Goes, 
with many little villages dotting the fields between; 
and around all this was water and still more water, 
upon which the island seemed to be floating. 

And there at my feet lay quaint old Middleburg, 
with its circular streets very visible, a most curious 
sight; and its circumference like a many-pointed 
star, with the river Vest flowing in strange zig-zags 
about it. 

While I sat there gazing at all this, the chimes began, 
and I watched the triple hammers, each pulled by a 
wire, playing up and down upon the bells. Some of 
the hammers were quite small, and produced only 
a little tinkle, and others were very large and pro- 
duced a deep boom. And while I was watching them, 
the nice old man in charge of the tower came out on 
the platform and asked me if I wished to go into the 
chamber below and see the mechanism. I said I cer- 
tainly did, and we went down together. 

That mechanism in the tower at Middleburg is 
typical of all the bell mechanisms in Holland, and it 



378 The Spell of Holland 

is very interesting. Its principal feature is a brass 
cylinder or drum, about four feet in diameter and 
perhaps eight feet long, in which little square holes 
are drilled in straight lines, and as close as possible 
together. There are one hundred and sixty-eight 
rows of these holes across the cylinder, and each row, 
extending around it, consists of one hundred and fifty- 
four holes — or a total of twenty-five thousand eight 
hundred and seventy -two. Little plugs of metal are 
inserted in some of these holes, projecting perhaps 
half an inch above the surface of the drum, and as 
the drum revolves, these projections trip the levers 
connected by wires with the hammers on the bells 
above, and cause them to strike. To change the tune, 
one has only to alter the position of the plugs, and 
a great variety of combinations is possible. 

In front, and at the bottom of the drum, is a key- 
board, just like a piano key-board, even to the sharps, 
and each key of this key-board corresponds with one 
of the rows of holes in the drum. That is to say, 
a plug placed in a row will produce the note indicated 
by the key opposite that row on the key-board. This 
makes the music-master's task a comparatively simple 
one; and it should be noticed that the range of one 
hundred and sixty-eight notes which this keyboard 
has is just twice that of an ordinary piano. So any 
tune may be played on these bells, and the only thing 
which circumscribes its length is the circumference of 
the drum, for, of course, the air is repeated after one 
revolution. There is a governor attached to the 



Last Days 379 



mechanism so that the drum always revolves smoothly 
and at a certain speed. 

The drum is turned by means of a weight, which 
hangs down into the tower at the end of a long rope. 
The tower-keeper informed me proudly that it weighed 
eight hundred and fifty kilos, or about two thousand 
pounds, and that he had to wind it up every day. I 
can well believe it, because those chimes seem to be 
always ringing. 

All of this mechanism, as weU as the great clock, 
dates from 1715, and it is running as smoothly and 
accurately to-day as it ever did. The hand on the 
clock jumps forward every half minute, and at every 
fifteenth jump it trips a lever which releases the drum 
and permits it to revolve. At the half -hours and 
the hours a very elaborate air is played, lasting four 
or five minutes. This old clock has a great reputa- 
tion for accuracy. There is another in the tower of 
the stadhuis which is somewhat erratic. The Middle- 
burgers regard its eccentricities with good-natured 
amusement, and call it " Gekke Betje," or " Foolish 
Betsy " ; but they set their time-pieces by the one at 
the summit of " Long John." 

The stadhuis is quite equal to the abbey in interest, 
for it is the gayest of buildings, with an exterior so 
elaborate, a tower so delicate, and a roof so crowded 
with row on row of dormers, that one can only stand 
out in the market-place and admire it, and wonder 
at the inspiration of its designer. It is a splendid 
example of late Gothic, dating from 1512, and the 



380 The Spell of Holland 

French influence is very evident all over it. A care- 
ful restoration, which has been proceeding for nearly 
twenty years, is almost completed. 

You will find a picture of it — not a very good 
one, for I forgot at the critical moment that my finder 
pointed too low — opposite this page ; and this will 
give you a better idea of its appearance than any de- 
scription could do. Note the statues of the Counts 
of Zeeland and their ladies, very properly disposed 
two and two between the windows of the upper story; 
and note the painted shutters of those windows — 
painted diamond-wise, as all Dutch shutters are, to 
simulate curtains. The work of restoration is going 
forward behind the scaffolding at the end, and here, 
too, a statue of Queen Wilhelmina, with the Princess 
Juliana in her arms, was just being hoisted into place. 
Note the painted shutters of the dormers, the graceful 
pinnacle, and the characteristic onion-shaped termina- 
tion of the tower. I hope that you will yourself, 
some day, stand in the market-place and gaze at this 
beautiful structure. 

Within, on the lower floor, is the old hall of jus- 
tice, a beautiful panelled room, with carved seats for 
the judges, a stall for the prisoner, and benches for 
the advocates and their clerks. In the arm of the 
judge's chair a hole has been bored, and in this a 
switch is placed, as an emblem of punishment. There 
is also on the wall the blade of the guillotine which 
the French revolutionists set up at Middleburg; long 
since disused, for capital punishment has been abol- 



Last Bays 381 



ished in Holland. There is an old hooded fireplace 
at one end of the room, and on the wall above it, very 
appropriately, a painting of the last judgment, with 
the torments of the damned most realistically de- 
picted. 

In the great hall on the upper floor the municipal 
museum has been installed, its principal treasure the 
charter granted to Middleburg in 1253 by William 
of Holland, the first charter ever given to any town, 
the precursor of Magna Charta and our own Declara- 
tion of Independence. It is from the few and limited 
privileges granted in this paper by a monarch to his 
subjects that constitutions have grown, and civic rights, 
and human freedom. The cups and emblems of the 
old guilds, once so powerful in the city's life, are pre- 
served in cases, and there are some other objects of 
interest — but none so interesting as that great beamed 
hall itself, which has stood there for four centuries. 
From one of the windows one steps out upon a little 
balcony overlooking the market-place. It was from 
this balcony that kings and magistrates addressed the 
people, or showed themselves to their admiring eyes. 
To stand in a place like that makes history live 
again ! 

I have said that, from the top of Long John, the 
circumference of Middleburg looks like a many- 
pointed star. These points, of course, are the angles 
of the old walls. The river Vest follows all these 
angles just as the old moat did. The walls have 
long since been replaced by a pleasant promenade; 



382 The Spell of Holland 

but the spot that is now given over largely to love- 
making was once the scene of a desperate struggle. 
For Middleburg, like so many other Dutch towns, 
has a siege in its history; though it differs from the 
other sieges in one important detail ; it was the Dutch 
who besieged the town and the Spaniards who de- 
fended it. They defended it well, for it must be con- 
fessed that they were good soldiers; but starvation 
accomplished what force of arms could not, and the 
town was finally surrendered. The scene which fol- 
lowed was also in strong contrast to that which 
usually occurred at such a moment, for, instead of 
being massacred, the garrison was permitted to march 
away uninjured. 

Time was when Middleburg was one of the rich- 
est and most powerful cities in the Netherlands. 
Along the Rouaansche Kaad the galleons from Rouen 
anchored, with their cargoes of French wines; at the 
Londensche Kaad, the English ships tied up to unload 
their cargoes of wool. Those quays still remain; 
their names are unchanged ; but, alas, the ships which 
once crowded them have sailed away, never to return. 

So Middleburg' s ancient glory has departed; from 
a great city she has become a quiet and sleepy pro- 
vincial town. She is thoroughly wakened up, though, 
for ten days of every year — the last ones of July 
— for this is one of the few towns of Holland where 
the kermess survives in all its glory. It is a great 
event; talked about for six months after it is over, 
and planned for for six months before it occurs; the 



Last Days 383 



ten days out of the whole year which the peasants 
of Walcheren look forward to as compensating for 
the labour of the other three hundred and fifty-five. 
It was not our good fortune to see the kermess, but 
if we ever return to Middleburg, we shall try to reach 
there on the fourth Thursday in July! 

I told, some chapters back, of my efforts to get a 
photograph of a girl milking a cow, and how I bungled 
it. I still wanted that picture^ and as our time in 
Holland was growing short, I started out, one after- 
noon, determined to get such a picture if it was 
humanly possible. So I struck out along the road 
running south from Middleburg, past little groups of 
houses and detached farmsteads; but nowhere did I 
see many cows, and I was about ready to turn back 
in despair. At last I came to a field where some were 
grazing, and determined to wait until the milkmaids 
arrived, hoping against hope that they would be pretty 
and in costume. 

At last they came — two girls with the yokes across 
their shoulders — and my heart leaped, for not only 
were they in costume, but they were the prettiest 
girls I had seen in Holland. They half-smiled at me 
as they passed, for they saw my camera and suspected 
what I was after; and then, when they were com- 
fortably tucked away under their cows, I crossed a 
plank, which lay over the ditch, and ventured to 
approach. My approach was cautious, because, as I 
had reason to know, these Dutch cows are rather shy 



384 The Spell of Holland 

of wandering Americans with cameras, and sometimes 
run away and upset the milk-pail, and raise hob gen- 
erally if you come upon them too suddenly. 

So I approached this cow from the rear, feeling 
as though I were stalking big game on the African 
desert. The milkmaid looked up when she heard me, 
and then laughed and ducked her head. Immensely 
relieved to find she didn't object, I got my camera 
ready. 

" Now," I said, between my teeth, " there must be 
no bungling this time! This has got to be a good 
picture. Remember, the finder points too low. Oh, 
isn't she a beauty ! " and I pressed the bulb. 

I thanked the girl by gestures as well as I could; 
but she made no response until I had reached the road. 
Then she waved me good-bye, and I returned pen- 
sively to Middleburg. 

I had that film developed that night — and — well, 
you will see it opposite this page. Notice the cap and 
the shoes and the short sleeves, and the knitted over- 
waist, and how the cow's tail is tied to keep it from 
slashing around. 

There is another costume to be seen occasionally 
in the streets of Middleburg, and it is the most sur- 
prising of all. Away across the Scheldt is a little 
strip of land called Flemish Zeeland, which belongs 
to Holland, though it is really a part of Belgium, and 
its principal city is Breskens. Sometimes the women 
of Breskens come over to Middleburg to shop, and 
it is they who wear this astonishing costume, the prin- 



Last Days 385 



cipal feature of which are two immense constructions 
set upon the shoulders, which bring them as high as 
the top of the head. If you will look at the picture 
opposite the next page, which I took at Breskens on 
our way to Bruges, you will see an example of this 
costume, to which I am quite unable to do justice in 
words. 

Of all the towns of Holland, Middleburg seems to 
me most characteristic and charming. It is well worth 
a week of any traveller's time, Tor it is not only in- 
teresting in itself, but it is near many places of in- 
terest. To the south is Flushing, which may be 
reached in half an hour by steam-tram or train, and 
more pleasantly by boat. It is a not very important 
bathing-resort, with a good beach, beloved by Middle- 
burgers; but an English fleet bombarded the place in 
1809, on an abortive expedition against Antwerp, and 
reduced many of the old houses, among them the 
stadhuis, to ruins. The buildings which have been 
raised to succeed them are not worth looking at. 

But to the north, on the other side of the island, 
is a town of quite a different sort — Veere, the 
" ancient and decayed." You may go to Veere from 
Middleburg by boat; but the hours are rather incon- 
venient, and the pleasanter way is to hire a carriage 
and drive over. 

It was a perfect morning when our carriage left 
the hotel, and rattling over Middleburg's cobbles, 
which are a penance whether one is awheel or afoot, 



386 The Spell of Holland 

came presently into a shady road, where one may 
avoid the cobbles by telling the driver to turn into 
the sidepath. Tolls are collected at both ends of this 
road going; but no tolls are collected returning. I 
wonder why? It is a four-mile drive, through a 
pleasant and fertile country, where everyone you meet 
nods and smiles. 

Veere revealed itself at last as a village almost 
incredibly picturesque, with the quaintest of houses, 
some of them four centuries old, a great barn of a 
church, and a perfect jewel of a town-hall, high and 
narrow, backed by the grace fulest of towers. It was 
built in 1470 by the father of the man who built the 
one at Middleburg, and the family resemblance is 
obvious. Across its front are a number of small 
figures of the lords of Veere and their wives; just 
as, at Middleburg, the counts of Zeeland and their 
ladies are honoured; and there is the same elaborate 
ornamentation, the same high roof broken by serried 
dormers. 

The custodian met us at the door, and escorted 
us inside in the most hospitable way. He could speak 
English better than most — better far than the woman 
who does the honours at Middleburg; and he was 
so proud of his collection and so determined that we 
should see everything in it that the visit lasted a long 
time. His chief treasure is the chased and enam- 
elled golden goblet given to the town in 1551 by 
Maximilian of Burgundy, Veere's first marquis. It 
is kept in a little safe, with a glass front, and mirrors 



Last Days 387 



deftly arranged behind it so that you can see all of 
it, and a very beautiful work of art it is. 

Here also are the old town registers, with many 
famous signatures; one of the entries recording the 
marriage of Hugo Grotius with Maria Reijgersbergh, 
of Veere, on the second of July, 1608 — a choice in 
which Grotius showed more wisdom than he did on 
many other occasions. Here, too, is the old magis- 
trates' room, just as it has been for centuries, with 
the carved oak seats around it, ajicj/a double seat for 
the judges, with a switch in the arm, as at Middle- 
burg. The custodian assured us, with a laugh, how- 
ever, that the switch actually used for the punishment 
of offenders was a much heavier one. Here also are 
some thief-catchers — spring-collars with spikes on the 
inside, fastened to the ends of long poles. Thrust at 
the leg or neck of a fugitive, they must have stopped 
him very effectively. 

There is an old Dutch fireplace, above which hang 
a number of bronze hands, reminders of the day 
when offenders were punished by being mutilated. 
But in those days, as in these, the net of law was 
cunningly contrived, so that only the little fish were 
caught inextricably; in other words, if the criminal 
were rich enough, he could save his hand by paying 
a fine and hanging up in the council-room a bronze 
hand, with his name cut on it, " as a symbol of eter- 
nal shame," as the custodian put it. One of these 
hands grasps a hatchet and bears the name of Gue- 
brecht Bremboas. Poor fellow ! The " symbol of 



388 The Spell of Holland 

eternal shame " has survived all other memorials of 
him! 

We wandered about the town for some time, after 
we bade the ruddy- faced custodian good-bye; out to 
the old tower which still stands guard at the spot 
which was once the harbour-mouth, although its fel- 
low was swept away by a great flood a hundred years 
ago, and the harbour is nothing but a mud-bank; 
along the beach, if the stretch of mud can be called 
so; past a gaunt, solitary windmill, and back again 
into the town. 

And here a tragedy happened. As we neared the 
town, we saw ahead of us, solemnly promenading 
along the road arm in arm, three little girls, in the 
full Zeeland panoply — long caps, white bibs, black 
skirts, and white aprons — just such cherubs as you 
see on the postcards of M. Den Boer. We hastened 
forward, we pressed a few pennies into each eager 
fist, we led them to the top of the dyke and posed 
them with that old windmill in the background, and 
I snapped the picture, and we watched them run away 
toward home, comparing their coins. But, woe of 
woes, when we came to develop that film, we found 
that the shutter had failed to work properly, and the 
picture was a failure! 

We stopped in at the church, after that, as yet 
happily unconscious of this disaster, and got an object 
lesson in what may happen to a church when left to 
the elements. For this tremendous edifice is no longer 
used or usable. It started on its downward career 



Last Days 389 



in 1812, when the French turned it into a stable and 
barracks, and partially destroyed it. Now it is merely 
a wrecked and empty shell, with the windows boarded 
up and the walls falling down. Quite recently the 
Zeeland government has set aside the sum of three 
thousand gulden yearly to be used in its restoration, 
but that sum, I fancy, is scarcely sufficient to keep 
a roof over it. 

We drove back to Middleburg, at last, and spent 
the evening loitering about those charming streets. 
We were a little sad, for it was our last night in 
Holland. 

And next morning we took the train to Flushing, 
and from there the boat across the Scheldt to Breskens, 
on the way to Bruges. And as we looked back across 
the water, we could see Long John, away in the dis- 
tance, beckoning us to return. 

Perhaps, some day, we shall heed that gesture! 



THE END. 



INDEX 



Aanroeper, 325-327, 328. 

Aanspreckers, 257-259. 

Aertsz, Jan, 34. 

Alkmaar, 204, 208-226. 

Alva, Duke of, 32, 136, 224, 
305, 351-352. 

Amicis, Edmondo de, 51, 229, 
276-277. 

Amstel, The, 167. 

Amsterdam, 13, 84, 89, 122, 
123, 144, 162, 164-189, 191, 
194, 209, 221, 226, 227, 241, 
245, 246, 247, 250, 262, 272, 
290, 375. 

Arnhem, 18, 350, 352-355- 

Architecture, 30-36, 74, 76-77, 
133-136, 259-260, 262, 272- 
273, 285-286, 304-309, 353- 
354, 359-360, 362-364, 379- 
381, 386. 

Art, 18, 82-83, 104-106, 108- 
110, 138-140, 181-189. 

Artz, D. C. A., 108-109. 

Barnevelt, John of, 106-107. 
Beek, 357- 
Benedenveer, 38. 
Bergen op Zoom, 365. 
Bloemendaal, 144. 
Blommers, B. J., 188. 
Bol, Ferdinand, 29, 261. 
Bonaparte, Louis, 169, 181. 
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 71, 104, 

169. 
Books, 83-84. 
Bossu, Admiral, 250. 
Boxum, 292. 

Boymans Museum, 17-18. 
Brabant, Duke of, 362. 
Brabant, Province of North, 

361, 362, 364-365. 



Breda, 365. 

Brederode, Castle of, 144-146. 

Breskens, 384-385, 389. 

Brick-making, 55-56, 221-222. 

Brill, 305. 

Broek, 165, 228-229. 

Cafes, 26, 71-72, 97, 129, 141- 
142, 177-178, 245, 312-313, 
34i, 352. 

Canals, 5, 7, 14, 28, 29-30, 58- 
62, 73, 248, 287-288. 

Capellen, Baron, 286-287. 

Carillons, 84-85, 214, 220, 263, 

313, 376-379. 

Catherine of Bourbon, 359. 

Catz, Jakob, 64. 

Cemeteries, 204-206, 329-330. 

Charlemagne, 360. 

Charles V., 263, 354. 

Cheese, 208, 210-220, 242, 254, 
340. 

Churches, 30-37, 40, 52-53, 56, 
62, 74-79, 131, 133-136, 172- 
175, 221-223, 251-252, 262, 
284-286, 308-309, 353-354, 
359, 362-364, 376, 388-389. 

Claas, Haasje, 166. 

Cleanliness, 15-16, 18, 38, 48- 
51, 56, 59-6o, 1 19-120, 155- 
156, 256, 269, 282-283. 

Coen, Jan Pietersz, 250, 257 

Coffee, 111-112, 340-341- 

Conrad, 135, 137- 

Cornelisson, Jan, 242-243. 

Costume, 53-54, 58-59, 65, 88, 
220-221, 229. 231, 233-23 s, 

238, 255, 259, 270-271. 272, 
276-278, 30I-*O3, 3T8-3I9. 

?6i. 366. 367-368. 384-38^. 
Courting, 20, 65, 152, 368-370. 



391 



392 



Index 



Currency, 9, 42. 

Customs examination, 1, 3, 47. 

Cuyp, Albert, 17, 26, 28, 38. 

"Dead Cities," 249-251. 
Delft, 30, 41, 46, 58, 62-63, 68, 

69, 73-85, 89, 106, 112, 113, 

114, 120, 185, 288, 375. 
Delftshaven, 18-19, 86. 
De venter, 351. 
Diamonds, 176-177, 180. 
Dirksz, Pieter, 242. 
Dirckzoon, Admiral, 250. 
Dordrecht, 9, 26-38, 41, 77, 

122. 
Dou, Gerard, 94, 95, 105-106, 

182. 
Drenthe, 279-280. 
Dunes, 64, 65, 140-141, 143, 

146-149. 
Dykes, 5, 86, 158, 159, 209, 240, 

248, 253. 

East Indies, 250, 352. 
Edam, 208, 240-244, 249. 
Eels, 97, 153. 
Egmont, Charles van, Duke of 

Gueldres, 290-291, 354-355- 
Enkhuisen, 63, 249, 254-265, 

281, 305, 315, 317, 334- 
Erasmus, 16-17, 178. 
Everdingen, C. B. van, 138- 

139, 222. 

Fish and fishing, 15, 39, 53, 61- 
62, 66-67, 125, 129, 158, 229, 
263-264, 327-328, 331. 

Flevo, Lake, 249, 280, 330. 

Florus V., Count of Holland, 
222. 

Flowers, 60-61, 124, 125-126, 

154. 
Flushing, 1, 377, 385, 389. 
Frederick, Don, 121-122, 136, 

224. 
Friesland, 7, 220, 265-279. 

Gapers, 131-132. 

Gardens, 60-61, 100- 101, 141, 

143-144. 
Gerard, Baltasar, 80. 



Gherardts, Gherardt, see Eras- 
mus. 

Giessendam, 38, 39, 40. 

Gijsbrecht II, 167. 

Goes, 377. 

Gorinchem, 38, 40-42, 256. 

Gouda, 48-54, 126. 

Goyen, Jan van, 94, 359. 

Groningen, 89, 278. 

Grotius, Hugo, 40-41, 73-74, 
387. 

Guelderland, 353. 

Guides, 167-168, 190, 195. 

Gutenberg, 137-138. 

Haarlem, 34, 63, 64, 96, 112, 
1 19-123, 129-130, 131-142, 
143, 144, 149-153, 154, 156, 
157, 160-164, 185, 224, 262. 

Hague, The, 63, 65, 68, 69, 81, 
82, 84, 100, 1 02- 1 12, 114, 115, 
227, 362, 

Halfweg, 123-124, 126. 

Hals, Frans, 98, 108, 138-139, 
181, 182, 185, 323. 

Havard, Henri, 242, 246, 268, 
315, 327, 328, 331. 

Heerenveen, 279. 

Hein, Pieter Pieterszeon, 79. 

Hobbema, Meindert, 17, 124, 

3JI- 

Hofjes, 95-96, 151-152, 174-175. 

Holbein, Hans, 17. 

Hooch, Pieter de, 182, 185, 

Hoorn, 248-254, 259, 263. 

Hospitality, 91, 100-101, 255, 
308, 322-323, 348-349. 

Hotels : Weimar, Rotterdam, 
11, 23-25; de l'Europe, Ant- 
werp, 47-48; Central, Delft, 
62-63, 112; Vieux Doelen, 
The Hague, 103; Brink- 
mann, Haarlem, 129; Duin 
en Daal, Bloemendaal, 144; 
Spaander, Volendam, 240; 
Die Poort van Cleve, Enk- 
huisen, 258-259 ; Kaiser- 
kroon, Zwolle, 280; Pays- 
Bas, Kampen, 291, 297-300, 
350; Oranje, Nijmwegen, 
356, 361 ; Burg en Daal, 
Ni j mwegen, 356 ; Vieux 



Index 



393 



Doelen, Middleburg, 370- 
371 ; Abdij, Middleburg, 
375. 
Huygens, Constantyn, 64. 

Ij, The, 123, 167, 228, 241. 

Ijssel, The, 155, 249, 291, 298, 
3i7-3i8, 35i, 352. 

Inns, 11-12, 23-24, 40, 44-46* 47, 
62-63, 103-104, 119-121, 243- 
244, 258-259, 298, 338-349. 

Israels, Josef, 187, 188, 273. 

Java, 340. . 

Juliana, Princess, 16, 171, 380. 

Kampen, 63, 120-121, 249, 254, 
259, 286, 291-316, 346-348, 
350, 362. 

Katwijk-aan-den-Rijn, 156-157. 

Katwijk-aan-Zee, 135, 154, 158- 

159. 
Kay, Leiven de, 132. 
Kempis, Thomas a, 286. 
Kermess, The, 97-99, 382-383. 
Kevijr, Trijntje, 242, 243. 
Klarenbeck, 355. 
Koster, Laurenz Janszoon, 137- 

138. 

Landscape, characteristics of, 
4-7, 60-61, 123-126, 209-210, 
248, 254-257, 268-269, 279- 
280, 291, 309-312, 350-352, 
361, 365, 3^ 

Language, 44-47, 83-84, 194, 
269-271, 275-276. 

Leeuwarden, 272-278. 

Leeuwenhoek, Anthony van, 

79- 
Leiden, 84, 86-100, 121, 138, 

149, 151, 153, 154, 155, 289, 

305. 
Lek, The, 155. 
Loevenstein, 40-41, 74. 
Lotteries, 84. 
Luggage, 57-58, 246-247. 

Maas, The, 29. 
Maes, Nicholas, 29. 
Magonza, Faust of, 137. 



Mar, de la, 20, 21. 

Marken, 68, 165, 192, 227-238, 
274, 324, 329. 

Markets, 28-29, 37-38, 51, 56, 
210-220, 269-270, 283-284. 

Marnix, Elizabeth van, 79. 

Mauritshuis Museum, 81, 82, 
98, 103, 104-106. 

Mauve, Anton, 187, 188, 312. 

Maximilian of Burgundy, 386. 

Medemblik, 249, 266. 

Meppel, 280. 

Merwede, The, 26-27, 29, 38. 

Mesdag, H. W., 108-110, 187, 
188, 27,3. 

Metsuj^ Gabriel, 94, 106, 184- 
185. 

Meyer, Louis, 188. 

Middenveer, 38. 

Middleburg, 254, 312, 366-389. 

Mieris, William van, 94. 

Monnikendam, 228-231, 249. 

Motley, John Lothrop, 44, 73, 
76, in, 121, 145, 208, 352. 

Museums: Boymans, 17-18; 
Rijks, 18, 139, 181-189, 359; 
Mauritshuis, 81, 82, 98, 103, 
104-106; Mesdag, 103, 108- 
110; Steengracht, 108; Mu- 
nicipal (Hague), 108; Mu- 
nicipal (Haarlem), 138-140; 
Municipal (Amsterdam), 166, 
187-188; Fodor, 188; Six, 
188; Frisian, 272-273; Mu- 
nicipal, Nijmwegen, 358; 
Municipal, Middleburg, 380- 
381 ; Municipal, Veere, 386- 
387. 

Nassau, Frederick Henry of, 

3^2. 
Nassau, Maurice of, 74, 102, 

104, 107. 
Neck, Johann van, 261. 
Nijmwegen, 355~36i. 
Nole, Jacob Kolyn de, 306. 
Noordwijk, 159, 160. 
North Sea, 13, 14& *53, *57, 

209, 249, 250. 

Orange, William of, see Will- 
iam of Orange. 



394 



Index 



Orphanages, 149-151, 165-166, 

261-262, 272. 
Ostade, Adriaen van, 106, 185. 
Osterlyn, Jan, 242, 243. 
Oudekerk, 55. 
Oudewater, 14. 
Over-Ijssel, 280, 286. 

Papendrecht, 41-42. 

Parma, Margaret of, 305. 

Peat, 36, 37, 126-127, 248, 279- 
280. 

Peter the Great, Czar of Rus- 
sia, 162-163, 190-202. 

Philip II., 52. 

Pilgrim Fathers, 18-19, 93-94. 

Po'ffertjes, 97-98, 153. 

Polders, 48, 122-124, 209, 247- 
248. 

Poot, Huibert Corneliszoon, 79. 

Potter, Paul, 105. 

Prince Consort, 171-172. 

Purmerend, 248. 

Quellin, Artus, 169. 

Railways, 2-3, 8-9, 87, 112-118, 

265-266. 
Reijgersbergh, Maria, 387. 
Rembrandt, 94, 95, 105, 108, 

181-182, 183-184, 185, 188. 
Rhine, The, 26, 31, 94, 96, 135, 

155, 157, 249, 298, 351. 
Rijks Museum, 18, 36, 82, 139, 

166, 181-189. 
Robinson, John, 94. 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 139, 231- 

232. 
Rotte, The, 13. 
Rotterdam, 2-3, 11, 13-18, 22, 

26, 41, 42-43, 48, 54, 55, 56, 

58, 60, 61, 221, 227, 288. 
Ruisdael, Jakob van, 124, 134, 

146, 182, 185. 
Ruyter, Admiral de, 174. 

Scheffer, Ary, 28-29, 38. 
Scheveningen, 63-68, 115, 160, 

221. 
Schiedam, 19. 
Schnapps, 19, 239. 
Schouten, Willem, 250. 



'S Gravenhage, see Hague. 
'S Hertogenbosch, 362-365. 
Shipping, 13-16, 38, 42, 54-55, 

66, 335-336' 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 352. 
Singel, The, 96-97. 
Sloterdijk, 128-129. 
Smoking, 9-1 1, 20, 21-23, 117- 

118, 200, 240, 265, 273, 274, 

341. 
Sneek, 268-271. 
Spaniards, The, 27, 32, 86, 121, 

123, 135-136, 208-209, 224- 

225, 229, 250, 292, 305, 351- 

352, 382. 
Staphorst, 280. 
Stavoren, 249, 266-268. 
Steen, Jan, 36, 94-95, 98, 105, 

106, 182, 185-186, 273, 323. 
Steengracht Museum, 108. 
Stoofjes, 36-37, 127. 
Storks, 55, 136, 156. 
Sumatra, 21, 340. 
Swans, 125. 

Tasman, Abel, 250. 

Terborch, Gerard, 106, 185, 

286. 
Texel, 135. 
Theatres, 19-21. 
Tilburg, 365. 
Tipping, 12, 120, 199, 200, 228, 

235-236, 348. 
Towing, 14, 330. 
Toys, 162-163. 
Tram-lines, 9, 27-28, 63, 68-70, 

122, 228, 254-257, 287. 
Trekschuits, 14, 15, 240. 
Trees, shapes of, 4, 39-40, 256. 
Tromp, Maarten Harpertszoon, 

77-7S, 250. 

Uitgeest, 210. 
Universities, 86, 89-90. 
Urk, 292, 314-337. 

Van Dieman's Land, 250. 
Veere, 377, 385-389. 
Velde, Adriaen van de, 106. 
Vest, The, 377, 381. 
Vermeer, Jan, 81-83, 106, 185, 
187. 



Index 



395 



Villas, 140-141, 143-145, 149, 

256, 352-353- 
Volendam. 165, 221, 227, 238- 

240. 

Waal, The, 29, 155, 355, 359- 
Wafelen, 97~98, 153- 
Walcheren, 377, 383. 
Water-beggars, 305. 
Waterloo, 71, 104. 
Wilhelmina, Queen, 16, 171- 

172, 380. 
William L, Count of Holland, 

135, 381. 
William II., Count of Holland, 

102. 
William of Orange, 73, 75-76, 

79-81, 86, 121, 145, 172, 2C9, 

225, 263, 362. 



Windmills, 190, 193, 202-203, 
209, 214, 247, 283, 287-289. 

Winter, Admiral de, 309. 

Witt, Cornelis and Jan de, 107. 

Women, work of, 55-56, 248- 
249, 300-301. 

Zaan, The, 193. 

Zaandaam, 190-202, 209, 247. 

Zaandijk, 202-206, 209. 

Zandvoort, 140-141. 

Zeeland, 7, 220, 365-366. 

Zutphen, 351-352. 

Zuyder Zee, 94, 208, 209, 236, 
241, 246, 247, 248, 249-251, 
266^267, 292, 297, 298, 305, 
314, 3i7-3i8, 330, 335-336. 

Zwolle, 132, 278, 280-291, 294, 
300, 350. 






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